


Chloe Jane Decker; or, The Modern Persephone

by violent_ends



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), F/M, Fantasy, Going to Hell, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), POV Multiple, Post-Season/Series 04, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-04 19:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violent_ends/pseuds/violent_ends
Summary: While researching Hell after Lucifer's departure, Chloe stumbles upon the Greek myth of Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. She convinces herself that it's the solution to all her problems, the key to see Lucifer again. All she has to do is have him grow a pomegranate tree. You know, inHell.And while you are here, you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished for evermore.{Homeric Hymn to Demeter}





	1. Chapter 1

Chloe has done plenty of research on him by now, maybe too much, considering where it led her. She knows all his names: Satan, Abaddon, Belial, Iblis, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Samael. Lucifer. Always _Lucifer_, to her. Lucifer Morningstar who can play the piano and is a fancy British man; Lucifer Morningstar who gave her a bullet on a necklace as a birthday gift. Lucifer Morningstar who let her daughter paint a glittery unicorn on his cheek. Lucifer Morningstar who died twice, for her.

She knows all his depictions and portrayed forms and appearances, too: horns, tail, goat legs, snake body with arms and legs, three faces or more. They don’t scare her anymore: she knows who he is, not that it really matters, now. He is angel wings and rough stubble, deep dark eyes that light ablaze with crimson fire; and he is devil wings and red burnt skin underneath, when you peel off the layers and peek through the cracks in the marble.

So after he’s gone, what she researches is _where_ he is. She tries to remember things he might have said about it, but they never really discussed it after she saw his Devil face and her life went off the rails; and before, well, in her mind it’s like there is no before. She could talk to Amenadiel, ask him to describe Hell to her just to feel some kind of connection, just to get an idea of what Lucifer might be doing. Is it hot, or cold? Is it dark? Does it have a sky? Does it have music? It kills her to imagine him with no music.

But she doesn’t ask, because maybe deep down she doesn’t want to know the truth, too scared to find herself confronted with the magnitude of Lucifer’s despair. She doesn’t ask because Amenadiel misses his brother deeply but he is happy and learning how to be a father and Chloe feels like it’s not her place to rain on his parade, on _anyone's_, as a matter of fact. She doesn’t ask because this is what she does best: putting pieces and clues together until they make sense, even though this time she wonders if they ever will.

She reads all the books in Lucifer’s penthouse – in his bed, where she goes to sleep alone when Trixie is at Dan’s, a pathetic and masochistic ritual no one knows about – and when it’s not enough, she resorts to browsing the Internet at night when she has the time and the strength. This time she knows better than to get carried away by terror-inducing images and sensationalism; she is practical, clinical, just trying to find the features that all the cultures and legends and myths have in common because maybe, just maybe, they might actually be true.

In time, she learns all its names. Mictlan, Irkalla, Xibalba, Patala, Diyu, Tuonela, Jahannam, Yomi, Sheol, Guinee, Kur. Some roll off her tongue more easily than others; all of them send a chill down her spine when she mutters the word under her breath, as if scared of summoning some ancient entity with the power of her speech alone.

In some of them, the souls of good and bad people reside together, regardless of their deeds in life. They walk aimlessly like shadows of their past selves, with literally nothing to do for eternity, a concept that should be more comforting than punishment but somehow scares her even more, because she always needs a mission, a purpose, a goal. Then again, she knows this version is not the real one: everyone gets judged, oh yes indeed.

There’s one that is a court at the center of a city full of traps and tests and trials, ruled by cruel death gods who laugh as they mock the suffering of humans. To reach many of them, you have to cross a river. There might be seven levels or maybe nine; blazing fire or boiling water or both. In some, the punishment is finite, and once it’s done your soul is born again in a new body to try and live a better life than the one before. Some rulers of Hell are mean, some simply indifferent; none of them resembles Lucifer, in the end.

What catches her attention, though, is that a few of them have wives. It’s actually a goddess who reigns over the Sumerian underworld: Ereshkigal, with her husband Nergal by her side. A nice feminist touch, Chloe can’t help but think, and from such an ancient culture no less. And then... then there is Hades, god of the dead and king of the Greek underworld that bears his name. Hades, who snatched a woman away from Earth, _alive_, and made her his queen.

Persephone.

_And the earth, full of roads leading every which way, opened up under her. He was riding on a chariot drawn by immortal horses. The son of Kronos. The one known by many names. He seized her against her will, put her on his golden chariot, and drove away as she wept._

What starts with a kidnapping can hardly be called a love story, but Chloe isn’t looking for one. It mostly sounds like Stockholm Syndrome back in a time when they didn’t even know what it was. Because Hades treats her wife right, in the underworld: he makes a throne for her and sets it up next to his, and at her suggestion he creates a new section for the best mortal souls to go. Elysium, where _they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods_.

Persephone is free to roam the underworld as she pleases, and according to many accounts, falls in love with Hades. But she misses her mother, Demeter, who in the meantime looks for her everywhere on Earth. So Hades lets his queen go back into the world, but tricks her, offering her six seeds from a pomegranate grown in Hell and binding her to return to the underworld six months a year, one for each seed she ate. In another version, Persephone eats them herself, careless and foolish or simply starving.

_And while you are here, you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who defraud you and do not appease your power with offerings, reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished for evermore_, Hades tells her.

_This is perfect_, Chloe thinks.

*

_This is crazy_, Amenadiel thinks.

Of course, he knew things would be tough for Chloe. He has tried to reach out to her – it’s what Lucifer would want, he keeps telling himself – but every time he does, she tells him she is fine. And Chloe is a strong woman, stronger than most, so he had decided that maybe she just needed time to come to terms with Lucifer’s absence. A daunting task, and he should know. Heaven was never the same, without him.

So when Chloe drops by his small apartment after a short and cryptic text, Amenadiel thinks that maybe she isn’t truly fine after all and needs a shoulder to cry on. What he doesn’t expect is Chloe explaining to him, in terrifying detail, that she has come up with a plan to visit Lucifer in Hell. A plan based on Greek mythology, for whatever reason.

"I just… I think it’s just a story" he tries to tell her gently, squeezing her hands from across the small table he never really eats at.

"Yeah, like all you people were supposed to be!” Chloe scoffs, leaning back to cross her arms over her chest in defiance, and yeah, okay, she might have a point but still. Amenadiel takes a deep breath. He’ll have to go about it in a different way.

"It’s not the same Hell, Chloe. For one, I can assure you no food grows down there.”

Chloe’s brow furrows, her Detective mind working to find a loophole, a way around what he just said. But Amenadiel isn’t lying: Hell is covered in ashes and there are no trees, of any kind. Plants need sunlight to grow, and the skies of Hell are constantly, permanently obscured by grey clouds that never actually produce any rain.

"But- but Lucifer always complained about the _wine_” Chloe objects, stubborn – in this, Lucifer surely found a good match. “Where do the grapes come from?”

Amenadiel's face falls a little. He knows he won’t like her reaction at his explanation, knows that Chloe will just get sadder the more he describes how terrible Hell is.

"Everything he eats or drinks down there comes from the Hell loops" he says, slowly, giving her time to process before continuing. “It’s an illusion, part of the punishment every human conjures up for himself. That’s why he always complained: it’s not real, it doesn’t _taste_ real. But he can have it, because it comes from there. It would dissolve here on Earth. That’s why, when he went to Hell to save you from the poisoning, he had to memorize the formula and throw away the piece of paper. It wouldn’t have made it back up with him.”

He instantly regrets reminding her of that particular instance, can almost hear Chloe’s heart emit a sharp _crack_. He still remembers everything about that day, but most of all, his brother’s tired expression when he touched his shoulder. Lucifer was relieved to have made it back in time, but from that day Amenadiel saw a new anguish in his eyes. At his insistence, his mother told him about Uriel, about the way she had to pry the bloody sword from Lucifer’s shaking hands as he cried. Of course, Lucifer never brought it up and Amenadiel didn’t, either.

"I see" Chloe whispers, waking him from his thoughts. She worries her lower lip between her teeth, wriggles her hands together nervously in her lap. Amenadiel feels for her but doesn’t really know what to say, so he decides to humor her for the sake of keeping the conversation going.

"So, pomegranate" he starts hesitantly. “For your plan to work, did it have to be that fruit, specifically?”

Chloe suddenly looks shy, like a child who just told a very elaborate story and got mocked for it, or shared the existence of her imaginary friend with her parents and found rejection.

"I- I guess. I mean, the more we stick to the story, the better? And it has to be something that you can break up in tangible parts, otherwise the person would get stranded down there forever. One seed, one month, it’s what it says.”

She sighs deeply then, and Amenadiel hates that he has to be the one to put that defeated look on her face. Lucifer would disapprove. _What would Lucifer do?_ was the mantra he had told Amenadiel to live by, not so long ago, and now he finds himself wondering _What would Lucifer think?_, instead. He’s trying to take care of all the humans his brother loves, but Charlie takes up most of his time. Still, maybe he could try harder, do better. For him, for what he did for his son.

"I feel so stupid" Chloe tells him, shaking her head as she rummages through the bag she hung to the side of the chair. “I even brought you these, so you could give them to him.”

Her closed fist opens up on the table to leave a bunch of pomegranate seeds on the wood, small and red, almost shiny. She looks up at him with such despair that Amenadiel knows, as useless as it will be, that she needs hope. It will surely come back to bite him but he will find a way to make up for it, somehow; maybe he should ask Linda and together they can find a way to cheer her up while she gets this mythological delusion out of her system. Or not.

_When the Detective puts her mind to something, there is no dissuading her until she gets to the bottom of it_, Lucifer’s voice reminds him, tucked in a corner with all of Amenadiel’s memories of him.

"I… I'll see what I can do" he says.

*

"She wants me to do what?” Lucifer asks, perched against the wall of the dark corridor they sneaked off to so that no demon would hear them talk, just in case. He is wearing one of his suits, of course, refusing to acknowledge where he is: now that he’s the Lord of the Underworld again, what used to be his loop is empty, but the illusory version of his penthouse and the wardrobe that is in it remain.

"Grow a pomegranate tree" Amenadiel explains tiredly – he doesn’t like the journey nor the destination, but he felt bad about not even sharing the plan with Lucifer, since apparently it means so much to Chloe. And it will certainly lead to nothing, but if she wants to gift him seeds, the least Amenadiel can do is deliver them.

Lucifer stares at the tiny red dots in Amenadiel's hand, pensive. His features are sharper since he came back here, the way they were centuries ago; his posture has lost the ease and lightness of L.A. in favor of the stern, unforgiving composure of kings. Yet, the façade breaks when in a pained whisper, he asks: “How?”

He hates to disappoint her, Amenadiel knows. Has hated it since the very beginning.

"I don’t know. I told her it’s impossible.”

Lucifer’s eyes grow sad – everyone is sad, basically, except for Linda and himself, too distracted by Charlie’s bright light to process the magnitude of recent events, still reeling from the anxiety and fear they felt when they thought they might lose him to an army of demons. To this place.

"How is she?” pleads the Prince of Darkness, a tragic hero mourning the loss of his mortal love. Amenadiel doesn’t really know how to put the answer into words, or better, into words that will not break him.

_She’s lost, because she lost you. She looks for you in books that have no meaning because she knows they are the only place where she can pretend to find you._

"She’s trying to make a Greek myth come to life. What do you think?” he says instead, a failed attempt at sarcasm judging by the frown on Lucifer’s face. When the silence stretches on, Amenadiel takes his arm and places the pomegranate seeds on his palm.

"They’re from her, so I knew you would want them. I’m sorry if I upset you, brother.”

"No, I was just thinking" Lucifer replies, tilting his head to the side as he looks down at his own hand. “She… she wants to come here. For _me_.”

Amenadiel watches him as he smiles, his face softening as he thinks of his Detective: it will always amaze him, what this woman has done to the Devil himself.

"She loves you, Luci. She misses you” he tells him in a whisper, as if saying it too loud might shatter Lucifer in a million tiny pieces – because it just might.

"It’s exactly because I love her, too, that I shouldn’t let her” Lucifer admits quietly to himself, before his features harden and turn bitter as he looks around for a moment. “This is no place for her, Amenadiel.”

_It isn’t, but she doesn’t really care_, Amenadiel thinks.  
  
“Why are you talking like it’s actually doable?” he asks. His brother stares at him, jaw working around the words.

"Because it might be.”

Amenadiel blinks in surprise.

"Are you serious?”

Lucifer’s gaze shifts from uncertainty to sudden determination, as if he just came to a very important realization.

"And if she really wants to, maybe- maybe it’s not my place to stop her now that she accepts all that I am!” he exclaims, cradling the seeds in his slightly closed fist before his expression turns way too frantic for Amenadiel's liking, his eyes wide and almost wild in that way they get when he’s struck with what seems like a brilliant idea, to him. “If it’s true, I could make it work. It’s a long shot but perhaps it’s still there.”

"…what is?” Amenadiel asks, but Lucifer is already far away, walking the intricate maze of his genious plan as he spins its web.

"Even a drop might be enough, I’m not sure, and then-"

"Luci-"

"All I need to do is pop back up on Earth and-"

A demon guard turns the corner and walks toward them, rattling some medieval instrument of torture against the stone wall as he goes. He bows quickly to acknowledge Lucifer before continuing his round, headed for the next cell along the hallway. It seems to snap Lucifer out of his frenzy, reminding him that like all kings, he is always under close surveillance.

"No, it has to be you" he says, turning to Amenadiel with a terrifyingly hopeful smile – whatever this is, Amenadiel will say yes and there really is no point in fighting it. “You have to go.”

"Go _where_, Lucifer?”

"To find what’s left of the waters of Eden, dear brother.”


	2. Chapter 2

Linda has been nothing short of patient with the celestial drama that swept her life away like a tornado, shaking the foundations of reality as she knew it. For God's sake (yes, Him, precisely), she has been tortured almost to death by the Goddess of Creation and has given birth to a baby that might sprout angel wings any moment now, for all she knows, and good luck explaining that to kindergarden teachers and babysitters, by the way. But all in all, she can say her life is fuller and more exciting now than it’s ever been, so she puts up with all the craziness that comes her way.

Well, almost all of it.

"Let me get this straight: you are going to fly to modern-day Iraq, a war zone, to collect water from the remnants of the Garden of Eden?” surely is a question she didn’t think she would ever have to ask, yet here she is.

Amenadiel looks at her with those stupid, infuriatingly tender puppy eyes of his, as if he just suggested a walk in the park and got denied. It’s one of those things that make him endearing to her, one of the reasons they are slowly starting to orbit back toward each other with Charlie as the sun of their little solar system, anchoring them both to his center of gravity.

Linda is still fighting it because she doesn’t want to be that woman, the one who claims she can do it on her own and then crawls back to the man she had a child with because it’s more _appropriate_ or socially acceptable or easier for everyone. It’s not like she doesn’t have feelings for him, but she’s scared the love they both have for Charlie might confuse her, mingling with what could just be friendship and affection. It’s complicated and it’s so not the time to dwell on it when Amenadiel is volunteering to get kidnapped by terrorists in the desert.

“Well, that’s the plan" he tells her, flashing her his brightest smile from the armchair he’s sitting on. Charlie is asleep in the nursery, the ceiling above their heads is still bubble-wrapped, and Linda clearly can’t catch a break.

"Because the water of Eden can make anything grow anywhere" she says from the opposite chair, repeating Amenadiel’s words, because maybe if she hears them from her own mouth they’ll make more sense. “So that Lucifer can grow a pomegranate tree in Hell, you can deliver the seeds of one of his fruits to Chloe, and she can eat as many of them as the months she wants to spend in Hell every time she goes to visit him.”

"Okay, listen, I know it sounds insane,” Amenadiel rushes to explain (it’s a small consolation, the fact that he admits it), “but I just couldn’t tell them no. They seem so... hopeful.”

_You went straight for the kill, didn’t you?_, Linda thinks, because what could she possibly say to this? She knows full well how unfair it is, that they got their happiness at the expense of Lucifer’s, in some twisted turn of fate. And it’s not like she hasn’t heard or seen equally unbelievable stuff: for crying out loud, Lucifer tore a hole in the fabric of the universe to send his mom through it, then unfurled a pair of bat wings from his back in front of her. So there’s that. Still, there seem to be a few things that don’t click.

"Let’s say it works, alright? That for whatever reason, the myth refers to something that might actually happen. Here on Earth, what is going to happen to Chloe? Will the ground open under her and swallow her?”

"It’s what happens in the story, but Chloe is not a goddess nor a celestial" Amenadiel says, and Linda is not sure if he already thought about it or if he’s formulating the answer in his mind for the first time right now, surprised by her inquiries. “A mortal can’t cross the gates of Hell with body and soul like we can. I can only assume her soul would leave her body... temporarily.”

Linda stares at him in shock. _No big deal, right?_

"Chloe would _die_?”

"No, no, no, it would be more like a coma. I guess? I mean, it would be the first time it ever happens so this is uncharted territory for me" Amenadiel shrugs; so very comforting of him. _This is great_, Linda sulks, _another first time in the history of the universe for me to deal with._

There still has to be a way to talk them both out of this insanity, though. Surely it can’t be this easy. It seems almost absurd to discuss it with such seriousness but if there is one thing Linda has learned is that literally _nothing_ is impossible.

"So Chloe plans on being in a coma for months on end? What about Trixie, or her job?”

"Time works differently in Hell; it’s slower" Amenadiel answers right away, this time, like someone who has been thinking way too much about this already. “I can’t be too accurate but one month down there should be one hour up here. So, in six hours of sleep she’d be with Lucifer for six months.”

_Wow, that seems oddly convenient._

"And what do you think would happen to her body? Like, would she be breathing and all?” she asks, distantly realizing they have been entertaining this whole concept for way too long at this point, but unable to stop asking questions that will hopefully send this castle of cards crashing down.

"That is something I can’t make up my mind about” Amenadiel confesses. “Maybe she would appear dead, like the princesses in those fairytales you humans like? Or maybe, like patients in a coma, she might require someone to maintain her body in working order, let’s say?”

He’s looking at her with a different spark in his eyes; it takes Linda a split second to put it together.

"Oh no. No, no, no, no. How many times do I have to tell you people I am not _that_ kind of doctor?!”

The image of Lucifer lying dead on a hospital bed will never leave her; the hopelessness of the moment right before she shocked him back to life will always haunt her. She’s not sure she can stand to see the same vacant stare in Chloe’s eyes if something goes wrong, and if she accepts this responsibility and fails, Lucifer will never forgive her.

"Come on, Linda, for now it’s just a theory" Amenadiel says in a reassuring voice, the same he used to tell her _Everything will be okay_ when her pregnancy sent her panicking, and truth be told, it has been. “I'm trying to prepare you, just in case. Honestly, I'm surprised Lucifer actually believes it might work.”

Linda’s heart skips a beat at that, at the image of him convincing himself of something impossible, setting himself up for disappointment once again. God knows – literally – he has had too many of those to last for a lifetime. She sighs. _Oh, how bad you'll regret this, Linda Martin._

"You are not going to go to Eden.”

"But-"

"Because I can get someone else to go for us, someone who knows his way around" she concludes. Amenadiel’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, creasing the skin of his forehead. “If it’s really just a small oasis now, like you said, I'm pretty sure one of my ex husband’s colleagues is reporting the war from somewhere around there. I'll make something up like, I don’t know, having a very religious partner who thinks that water is holy and wants it for our son's christening, or something.”

Amenadiel smiles, shaking his head slightly.

"You truly are the cleverest of us all, aren’t you, Doctor?”

Linda shrugs and smiles back, because let’s be honest, she _is_ pretty clever sometimes. It’s a good thing all of Reese's friends still like her, too.

"You’re sure it’s not guarded anymore, right? And Lucifer told you where to go?”

Apparently it’s a fundamental detail, because back then Amenadiel couldn’t care less about the human world and it turns out that he has never actually seen Eden with his own eyes.

"People forgot where it is, or stopped believing it was real, so Father doesn’t really pay it any mind now. And yes, Lucifer gave me a pretty accurate description. It’s been millennia and he still remembers!” Amenadiel answers in surprise, for some reason – sometimes Linda thinks that despite eons of existence spent together, there are things about Lucifer she understands more than his own brother, helped by her detached therapist eye.

_Of course he does_, she thinks to herself. _It was there that a human loved him for the first time._

*

Where the rivers Tigris and Euphrates meet, lies a cave that leads to the very first patch of land graced with life by the touch of the Lord his Father. It’s hiding in plain sight, a secret oasis for weary travellers if they happen to get lost and stumble their way inside. Lucifer remembers it like it happened yesterday: his slow descent down the cave, driven by insatiable curiosity at the thought of seeing Dad’s new creations; and his disappointment in finding out that one of them was already unhappy, unsatisfied, unable to fulfill her desires.

Back then, not long after the Fall, all Lucifer craved was to make Father angry, to push Him over the edge so that His own wrath would lead Him to destroy what He was most proud about. Pride was the sin Lucifer stood accused of, and the irony was that he knew his Dad wasn’t completely lacking it as He might think or claim. Oh, He was proud of His humans, of the garden where harmony ruled supreme and unbothered, at least until He forced two people to live together in it.

After Adam and Eve were cast out, Lucifer’s sister Azrael was given the task of guarding the entrance, flaming sword in hand. But in time, all the nature and wildlife that inhabited the garden seemed to respond to the sins of the humans who were starting to populate the rest of the world, as if connected to them by a secret bond: the trees withered and died, the bushes grew scarce, water drained into the ground and retreated.

And when Death descended upon the Earth to claim its first mortal soul, Abel, God decided Azrael should have a new task: a fitting one, considering that she had witnessed what death was as she watched Eden fade away by the unaware hand of humans themselves.

So now, Lucifer isn’t sure that any of it is left, but a drop of water might be all he needs; a minuscule remnant of the spring that sustained the very first trees and satisfied the thirst of the very first living creatures of the world. The more he thinks about it, the less absurd it seems that a fruit born from the ground of Hell itself might have a special power; it’s just that he never needed to test that possibility, never bothered to regard myths as believable accounts unless they were about his family.

But his Detective, she is a force of nature to be reckoned with, that one. Of course she didn’t give up on him. Sometimes, despite his recent revelation and his newfound ability to embrace all that he is, he still doubts he deserves even an ounce of her longing. This whole plan of hers might lead to nothing, but Hell, the least he can do is try.

It takes many months, at least in Hell-time, for Amenadiel to visit him again. Lucifer catches a glimpse of him landing on the outskirts of the maze of cells, so he takes flight from his throne and quietly joins him. Empty, frozen land stretches on before them as far as their eyes can see, ready to shift and reshape itself to accomodate new damned souls when they will arrive. No water, no sun, no nutrients in the soil: no chance for a life to spring free from a crack in the rocks and survive unless helped by divine intervention.

"I got it" Amenadiel says, offering him a small vial filled with water – only a bit bigger than the one Father Kinley tried to use when he tricked and poisoned Chloe’s mind against him, Lucifer thinks distantly, but there is no point in dwelling in the past.

"Was it difficult?” he asks his brother, staring at the see-through liquid beyond the glass. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

"This is all that remains" replies Amenadiel, looking at him with a very serious stare, telling him he won’t have a second chance. “Linda’s friend had to look really hard for it.”

Lucifer raises one eyebrow in surprise, but quickly decides his shock has no reason to exist: Chloe isn’t the only woman in his life – in what _was_ his life – to be a tornado of brilliance, courage and smart ideas.

"So, what now?” Amenadiel asks him, distracting him from memories of therapy sessions and life-altering epiphanies and smiles of comfort and understanding, the first ever directed at him by a human who knew his true nature. He misses Linda. He misses all of them.

"Now I get to work" he says, patting at the pomegranate seeds tucked inside a handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit, always close to his heart.

*

"Lucifer gardening!” Maze chuckles, apparently entertaining and reliving the image of it in a loop as she shakes her head from where she’s standing. “He wouldn’t be able to take care of a goldfish if he tried.”

"He’s full of surprises, our handsome Devil" Linda muses, exchanging a proud little smile with Amenadiel.

They are all looking at Chloe, who is sitting on the bed of Linda's guestroom, and Chloe doesn’t miss the way her friend said “our" with no hint of sarcasm or hesitation: it makes a tiny butterfly of joy flutter and take flight in her chest, knowing how deeply Lucifer is loved, how everyone in this room is willing to help her make him happy.

It’s only been two days since Amenadiel gave the water of Eden to his brother – he filled Chloe in later about why Lucifer needed it, then let her know the deal was done with an emoji string of tree-water drops-thumbs up, a product of Lucifer's cryptic lessons in modern communication and a silly little detail that made her smile as she looked at her phone, thinking of him.

In Hell-time, it’s been four years instead, according to the angel's calculations. Lucifer has tended to a tree, nurturing it with the tiniest amount of water every time so it would be enough, for _four years_ without even knowing if it will be of any use. It makes Chloe want to cry at the sheer, heartbreaking _tenderness_ of it, and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if it turns out that all Lucifer grew was a beacon of false hope.

A few seeds of the first pomegranate born from a tree that miraculously sprouted from the dead ashes of Hell now lie in her hands. Around the bed, there are all sorts of medical instruments and equipment Maze brought to Linda’s house, a very expensive black market purchase she paid with one of the many credit cards Lucifer left behind. It’s all a precaution, in case they need a defibrillator or something else to kickstart her heart or keep her alive. Oh God, what _is_ she doing?

"Having a change of heart, Decker?” Mazikeen pipes up, her arms crossed over her chest as she raises a thin eyebrow at her.

Chloe looks down at the seeds again. _Four years_. No, she can’t back away now. She’ll start with one – one hour, one month – and at least she’ll find out if all this trouble has been useless. The worse that can happen is... well, nothing happening. Or dying? Maybe she should have considered this possibility sooner?

_Oh, screw it._ Her job is danger. She risks a bullet to the head every single day. She’s doing this. She’s Chloe Jane Decker and she will pay a visit to her celestial long-distance boyfriend if she wishes, goddamnit.

"No, I'm ready" she says, before picking one seed from her palm and eating it in a hurry, afraid she’ll change her mind if she keeps thinking this over.

Nothing seems to happen, at first. They all look at each other in turn, alternating between skepticism (Maze), curiosity (Amenadiel), relief (Linda) and disappointment (Chloe). And then... then she suddenly feels weak. Her eyelids flutter close of their own accord, her body sighs with a long, drawn-out shudder as she collapses on the bed.

"We are _so_ going to jail for this" Chloe hears Linda say, before her soul leaves the mortal world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, it all goes to Hell! (literally)


	3. Chapter 3

When Chloe opens her eyes again, she’s standing in front of a tall black gate with sharp iron spikes on top.

_Bloody hell, it worked_, Lucifer would say, and she finds herself embracing the expression no matter how foreign it sounds. Because it did work, it should have been impossible but it did, unless... unless she’s dead. Which she’ll hopefully find out soon.

The sky overhead is dark and cloudy, and the air is filled with ashes slowly twirling until they land on the ground like snowflakes. Beyond the gate, there is an open-air prison, the throne of its headmaster stretching upwards like a neverending pillar of grey stone, made up of smaller mismatched columns all crammed together in an uneven pile. It’s so tall that Chloe can’t see if it’s currently occupied.

She’s in Hell, the Hell of the Bible and, in a way, of all the books she has read. Although this was her goal, she can’t help but freak out internally at the significance of it as her life is once again shaken, turned upside down, forever different from the way it was before when she thought she knew what was real and what wasn’t.

_Oh God, oh God, oh God_, she chants in her mind, then stops herself, almost chuckling as she thinks about how Lucifer would scold her for directing her prayers at his Father. _I can assure you He has no jurisdiction here, Detective_, he would say with his perfectly accented voice she misses like air, terrified of forgetting how it sounds.

"Be gone, errant soul" a deep, growling voice tells her suddenly, startling her. Chloe looks down and realizes there are two guards at the gate, one on either side. They have human features, like Mazikeen, wear armors and helmets and carry a spear in one hand.

"I-" Chloe stutters, willing her voice to stop shaking – she’s in the presence of demons but it’s not like it’s the first time, right? “I'm here to see your king.”

Their eyebrows shoot up in surprise, before the two guards exchange a puzzled and slightly worried look, probably wondering if their king is truly expecting a visit but not knowing how to act. Amenadiel told her Lucifer has kept the pomegranate tree a secret, for fear of some demon trying to cut it down.

"You can’t come in” says the second guard. “Your soul has not left your body permanently. Go now, before you put us in trouble with our Lord!”

Oh, good. So she’s not dead. That's great news. Now all she needs to do is convince them to let her in if she doesn’t want to spend a month wandering into... what, the void? Purgatory? A limbo?

"No, you don’t understand,” she rushes to explain, “he- he knows I’m-"

The sound of angel wings in the air sucks the breath out of her lungs and turns the demons in two shaking, terrified little creatures. They drop their spears and kneel, their heads low and reverent, even before their king's feet touch the ground.

_He’s here._

Lucifer lands gracefully between Chloe and the guards at the gate, then folds his white wings inside himself with a minute movement of his shoulders. He is wearing one of his black bespoke suits, hair perfectly styled and cufflinks at his wrists as if he still has to come to the precinct every morning to get everyone donuts for breakfast - _Don’t worry, my darling nameless uni, they’re on me!_ \- and proceed to sidetrack one of Chloe’s investigations by making it all about himself. He looks the same, exactly the same, a notion that still sends Chloe’s head spinning now that she knows he has already spent years down here since he took back his throne.

The mere fact that she can see him, hear him, touch him, that all she has to do is reach a hand out, almost makes her faint. And the way he looks at her – Chloe will always be at a loss for words at the intensity he can muster with his gaze, at the longing that never seems to abandon him. She takes a tentative step toward him, but something in his eyes shifts and she stops.

"Open the gate" he says as he turns to the demon guards bowing low, his voice stern and emotionless. Chloe has missed it, has missed hearing him speak and sing, but this isn’t a voice he would ever use with her or anyone he cares about. It’s the voice of the King of Hell.

"But- but sire, she's not _dead_” a guard mumbles, staring at the floor on purpose to avoid meeting Lucifer’s gaze.

"Did you hear me asking for your opinion?” Lucifer bites back with a snarl, sudden red eyes compelling the demon to look up at him as he takes a threatening step toward the creature. “Did you?!”

"N-no, no, my King. I apologize" the demon whispers, moving to unlock the heavy barrier standing between Chloe and the Underworld.

_He must have been furious when he came back_, she realizes. _They can barely look at him_.

Not that they don’t deserve it, honestly, after the possession spree they unleashed on L.A. What saddens Chloe is how harsh they have forced Lucifer to be, how cruelly he needs to behave for them to stay in line. She caught a glimpse of it back at the Mayan, where she saw what he needs to do to be feared and respected, but it was gone in the blink of an eye. Down here, Lucifer can’t stop.

Chloe gets it now, that change in his gaze: he doesn’t want to show weakness in front of them, doesn’t want to make them aware of how much he cares for her, and it breaks her heart.

_Maybe he needs me even more than I need him_, she thinks, because in her life on Earth there is still love and laughter and joy, even if dulled by his absence. Down here, Lucifer has nothing.

Once the gate is open, he gestures for Chloe to follow him through it without saying a word. Trying to ignore the panic settled firmly inside her chest at where she’s about to go, Chloe nods and walks behind him. The stone path leads them through a maze of corridors spreading from the main one in all directions, with the throne at the exact center of it. The walls are dotted with doors of all kinds, some modern, some old looking; from barn doors to castle doors to doors that seem to lead into hospital rooms, supermarkets, law firms, offices, houses in the suburbs, gyms, military barracks, even churches.

To this, Amenadiel has prepared her, giving her a quick description before her descent. They are loops, each one set in a different location according to the sin the human inside the cell is cursed to relive until the end of time, if there will ever be one for the damned. It’s a weird feeling, a sense of uneasiness crawling down her spine at the thought of being literally surrounded by dead people, some of which have been dead for centuries, even millennia.

Chloe scurries along to keep up with Lucifer’s quick, long strides as he walks past random demon guards patrolling the hallways, all averting their gaze from him and then staring at Chloe with barely concealed curiosity. From beyond the doors, muffled screams echo in the air, making her shiver. She always knew it would be unsettling, but the thought of herself or anyone she loves spending eternity here as a prisoner is... well, it’s terrifying.

When they eventually reach the base of the throne, a throne with no stairs and completely smooth at the bottom so that only an angel can sit on it, Lucifer walks all the way around it. He opens a door carved in the stone, big and imposing, and slips inside. Inside what, Chloe doesn’t know, but once she follows him down a long and winding flight of stairs that twists and turns to lead into room after room after room, bare and candle-lit, she thinks she gets it: it’s a palace, a castle developing downward from the surface of the ground, the residence of a king literally turned upside down and disappearing into the earth like the roots of a tree.

There seem to be less demons down here, and from a certain point none at all. She can’t really say for how long they walk until finally, Lucifer leads her inside a room and shuts the door behind them. At the center of it, standing tall on a small mount of literal ashes, is the pomegranate tree, blooming with leaves and fruit and color, standing out from the dull background that is Hell itself.

Amazed at the sight, Chloe steps forward until she can touch it, brushing her fingers against the bark of a branch ever-so-delicately for fear of messing with the divine power that made it exist. She turns around to look at Lucifer and realizes she hasn’t said a single word since she saw him.

"You took care of it for such a long time" she tells him, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes.

Finally, _finally_, Lucifer moves closer and she knows he is the Lucifer she remembers, the one she fell in love with – her guardian Devil, her handsome Devil-cop or whichever other silly nickname he gave himself along the way. Just _Lucifer_, underneath it all.

"Of course I did" he says, deep voice echoing off the walls and burying itself deep in her heart as he cups her cheek and brushes his thumb over her cheekbone. “You know I'd do anything for you, Detective.”

She’s still The Detective, even here, which makes her laugh out loud as she leans into his palm, its touch burning her and healing her at the same time. A tension that started weak and distant suddenly grows and grows and grows around them as they stare into each other’s eyes, both afraid to move and somehow break the spell that made all this possible. Electricity courses through Chloe’s body - _He’s here, he’s here, he's here_ \- and it’s so overwhelming that she doesn’t even know what she will say when she opens her mouth and speaks.

"Lucifer,” she breathes out, and it’s enough.

He crashes into her with the force of a tsunami, the waves of his passion hitting her in rhythmic intervals as he kisses her, tilting her face upwards with his hands. Chloe raises herself on her tiptoes to wind her arms around him, her chest surging against his, and lets out a small whimper of desperation when Lucifer’s own arms find their way around her middle to pull her flush against his body.

There is fire under his skin, and fire in her veins, years of misunderstandings and bad timing and wrong choices, unannounced flight attendants and Vegas weddings and marriage proposals by Biblical murderers and priests whispering suspicion in her ear about the Prince of Lies, master of deceit and source of all temptation; years of Chloe choosing not to see the obvious and then running away from it, years of Lucifer losing himself in parties and sex and drugs as he ignored his feelings for her, the miracle child his hated Father put in his path.

Chloe distantly wonders if this is still part of His plan, if all along God knew this would happen, or if at the end of the day all the Lord does is set a chain of events in motion to simply watch it unfold. When Lucifer’s hands scramble to pull her shirt over her head and then remove his jacket and shirt, she decides it doesn’t really matter, and all she can think is _Well done, God Almighty._

"You are the bravest person I have ever met" Lucifer tells her in a heated whisper against her neck, his mouth and hands moving down her body. “I can’t believe you did it. I can’t believe you’re _here_.”

Chloe can’t believe it either but she feels unable to speak, so instead of answering, she pulls Lucifer down on the floor with her and kisses him on the lips again.

Lucifer makes love to her on the cold, hard stone next to the base of the pomegranate tree, the tree he nurtured and helped to grow like the son they'll never have. He makes love to her with his mouth and his fingers, watching Chloe in awe as she loses herself in his touch - _You are so beautiful_, he whispers, _You take my breath away_. And when in the end they are joined together, when she can truly say they are one, it’s as perfect as she expected it to be and more, regardless of the soreness in her limbs and the dust clinging to her back.

But when he's pressed between her legs, engulfing her with the light of his being, Lucifer starts to beg for her forgiveness, leaving desperate pleas on her skin in the wake of his lips, frantic messages lost in glass bottles drifting away with the tide.

"It wasn’t supposed to be this way" he says as his hands betray him, roaming aimlessly without knowing where to stop, until they settle for everywhere. “It wasn’t supposed to happen _here_. I'm sorry, I'm _sorry_.”

"It doesn’t matter" Chloe reassures him between kisses, because truly, it doesn’t. All their plans have gone to Hell, quite literally, so she’ll take what she can get: she’ll have him in a place that she didn’t even believe existed a few years back, because she could have had him on Earth but messed it up and this is what it has all come down to. A stolen moment, inconsequential to the flow of human history above.

Maybe it _should_ matter, and it might have to the Chloe she was before. The one who cared about timing and romance and compatibility, earthly matters and kinks to work out when she thought they had the _time_, but they don’t; they don’t unless she makes it, slipping through a hole in the fabric of reality, cheating her way around the laws of time and space.

This is what it is. It’s not ideal, but it’s _them_, and it’s all Chloe ever really wanted.

*

_She’s here_, Lucifer thinks. _She’s here, she’s here, she’s here._

It’s not the way he dreamed it would go; it’s so much less than what she deserved it to be.

But it’s them, and it’s all Lucifer ever really wanted.


	4. Chapter 4

During Chloe’s first day in Hell, Lucifer answers all her questions as she showers him with doubts and curious assumptions in childlike wonder, sitting between his legs with her back pressed against his chest, while his own back leans against the sidewall of the pomegranate room. They put their underwear back on and now they just lie together, satiated and content, two lovers catching up after a period of time spent apart. A long, long time, at least for him.

He twirls thin strands of her hair around his fingers as she talks, breathes in the scent that radiates from the skin right behind her ear, brushes his fingertips along her arms and tightens his hold around her middle to nuzzle and kiss at her neck from behind, making her giggle. His Detective is bubbly and giddy and overexcited and Lucifer selfishly wishes she never had to leave.

"Where do you get your suits down here?” she asks at some point – _Really? Of all the things you could ask?_

When he explains it to her, she obviously suggests they could spend their time in the version of the penthouse his mind concocted when it created his Hell loop. The answer is no, they cannot.

"It’s not safe for you to enter any of the loops" he tells her. “You might have guilt you don’t even know you feel and it could sneak up on you, shaping a whole new fantasy and trapping you in it.”

In a locked, secluded corner of his mind, Lucifer is still stabbing Uriel to death again and again and again until the angel's blood soaks his sleeves almost up to his elbows. Chloe’s life being in danger might have distracted him when he came to Hell for the antidote to her poison, and he truly feels that what he did to his brother was necessary given the circumstances, but forgiving himself and forgetting are two entirely different things. A Hell loop never leaves you, even if you manage to escape from it.

He can’t truly know the guilt that lies deep in Chloe’s heart, at something she might have done before or after meeting him. But then, she speaks.

"Oh, I see" she whispers; in the silence, Lucifer can almost hear wheels spinning inside her head as she ponders. “Well, the last thing I want is having to meet Father Kinley again, so message received, loud and clear.”

Surprised, Lucifer moves his head to the side to look at her.

"Chloe, that’s in the past. You don’t have to-"

"You know I'll never stop regretting it" she cuts him off, smiling sadly. “There really is no point in fighting it.”

_There is, if you don’t want to end up here._

He doesn’t say it, because he doesn’t want to scare her. Furthermore, there’s no way all the good she’s done and keeps doing in her life won’t balance the one single mistake she can’t seem to forgive herself for. Lucifer doesn’t like to think about it, either. It still stings, the way she looked at him back then, how terrified she was; and deep down a part of him still fears this whole plan will drive her away from him once and for all, as soon as she realizes how awful his kingdom is.

"But at least this means you can play your piano, right?” Chloe asks after a moment of silence, entirely too hopeful for someone who is literally visiting the worst place that ever existed.

"I could, but I don’t want to. Once you know it’s a trick none of it feels real in there, not even music, and that’s... that’s something I just don’t want ruined.”

Chloe’s face falls. She’s in for a lot of disappointments if she keeps her hopes up this much, about everything. Lucifer's soul is so old that at this point he got used to it, but humans... at least in life, they can’t possibly fathom to endure suffering and deprivation for an indefinite amount of time. The concept of something being infinite, with the exception of the universe itself, is too big for them to truly grasp, and even the absence of music, applied to the idea of _forever_, seems too cruel. It probably is, because that’s the whole bloody point.

"That’s a shame" Chloe says, and she’s right. Which makes a new question pop in Lucifer’s mind, a doubt he didn’t even know was there before.

"Is my real penthouse still... you know, mine?”

He doesn’t know why it matters, why he can’t let go of the material things that gave shape and meaning to his life on Earth. It’s just that a selfish part of him wants people to still remember him. He wants them to be happy, but... the idea of them forgetting him fills him with a dread he can’t comprehend, especially because forgetting is something _he_ is unable to do. He remembers everything, from the Garden to the Fall; he remembers the first time he met Chloe - _Lucifer Morningstar? Is that a stage name or something?_ \- and all the cases they worked on.

Chloe turns around completely, now curled in a ball between his spread legs.

"Of course it is, Lucifer. No one... no one has given up on you” she tells him, moving a strand of hair away from his forehead in a tender gesture; a new ritual in the little dance around each other that they have been engaged in for a while now, a new thrilling act Lucifer can look forward to.

She means that no one has given up on the idea of him returning, and he doesn’t really know what to make of it. Demons cower at the sight of him now, and Dromos has been demoted from master torturer to the task of scrubbing the floors clean from the ashes – and ashes _never_ stop falling, in Hell. But they still keep an eye on Lucifer, he knows they do. The only reason they keep themselves in check is because he is here, because his presence is a constant reminder of the depths of his wrath.

Wretched, disgusting, slithering little creatures that they are (Mazikeen excluded, of course). No wonder his Father relegated them to the worse job there is; too bad Lucifer is their designated employer, though.

Chloe seems to sense the change in his mood, the way his mind is wandering somewhere else, because she nudges at him and says, “Anyway, when are you showing me around?”

And Lucifer suddenly _laughs_, for the first time in years, at how simple and easy she makes it sound: she’s always had this power, truth be told, the power to make him believe her when she says _Everything will be okay, it’s no big deal._

Chloe seems slightly offended, judging by the way she glares at him as she tries to figure out what’s so funny. He missed the silly faces she makes when she’s mad and the way she pouts sometimes, he missed everything about her; from the seriousness on the job that he enjoys messing with to the innocent giddiness she’s capable of when she’s slightly tipsy or carefree. Things will probably be different here, stripped bare of all the social conventions and patterns and obligations that dictate the rhythm of daily life on Earth, but she’s still her.

She’s still Chloe, who eats an unhealthy amount of packaged sandwiches and doesn’t know when to stop working and go to sleep unless he texts her to remind her; who missed her highschool prom because she grew up too soon; who sucks at flirting and doesn’t realize how beautiful she is, not completely at least, not the way Lucifer does when he looks at her and sees her soul.

"You sound like you’re looking for a house to rent, Detective" Lucifer tells her when his laughter dies, amused by how surprising she is, how she never ceases to amaze him. “I have to warn you, this isn’t exactly the best part of town and the roads are just _dreadful_, not to mention how loud the neighbors are.”

She slaps him on the shoulder playfully, her eyes shining and crinkling up.

"I'm serious" she says with a chuckle. “Come on, I want to take a look around.”

_There is nothing for you to see_, Lucifer thinks bitterly. He realizes he didn’t really think this part through and maybe Chloe didn’t either. What exactly can he show her, considering the loops are off-limits? Not that he would let her see them anyway. A peek at what eternal damnation looks like can mess with the soundest of minds.

Then a thought strikes him. _Actually, I can show you everything._

"Get dressed, I'll take you for a ride.”

*

Chloe knows this isn’t the first time Lucifer flies with her in his arms, but back then she was unconscious, and once she woke up she was already on a faraway rooftop among bloodied angel feathers drifting in the air. This time she’s wide awake, tucked in his embrace as he soars, and it’s an experience she knows she won’t forget.

He shows her Hell from above, its tangles of straight corridors and sharp corners, and like everything, from the top the place probably seems better than it is. The dimensions of it still unsettle her though, the way it seems to go on forever to accomodate what will only be an increasing number of sinners.

It looks lonely, way too lonely for someone like him, who enters a room and suddenly fills it to reveal an emptiness you didn’t even know was there before. Someone who craves music and contact and pleasure in all its forms and shapes, who doesn’t feel like the day has been lived to the fullest if one single desire has gone unsatisfied.

And no place is more lonely than his hellish throne, the final destination of their little journey. Lucifer gently lowers her on it, then sits on one of the armrests with his legs directed towards her, his wings half-folded behind his back just in case he loses his balance. He adjusts his cufflinks and straightens his white shirt from the creases caused by the flight, such a mundane gesture in a place like this, and so _him_.

"Having fun, Persephone?” Lucifer asks her, arching one eyebrow at her with a grin.

"I suppose this will be a thing now?” Chloe answers with a chuckle, shifting in the seat to try and get used to it, but it’s too big and hard and so high that she doesn’t dare to look down even though Lucifer would be sure to catch her if she slipped.

"Nah. You’ll always be The Detective to me,” he says, then hesitates, “or I could call you my Queen, if you like.”

Chloe can’t be sure if he’s kidding or not: he is very good at hiding his vulnerability behind the veil of sarcasm. Still, she feels like the atmosphere between them is light enough to be cheeky with him, to allow herself to enjoy the snarky banter she misses so much.

"Woah, woah, woah, slow down! We just had sex and you already want to tie the knot?”

Lucifer bursts out laughing, and suddenly everything is so surreal: she is sitting on the throne of the Underworld exchanging jokes with Satan. One hell of a date, pardon the pun.

"I'll have you know I've become a very serious Devil, I'm all about commitment and lovey-dovey stuff... except for shared social media accounts. A man _must_ keep some mystery for himself, Detective.”

And yet, when the last day of her first month – her first seed – rolls around, Lucifer surprises Chloe by letting her know he didn’t forget about this conversation, and that deep down, he meant it.

"I have a gift for you" he tells her, his hands behind his back. He has taken her to the far outskirts of his kingdom, where no one will bother them, because there is no one here to torture yet. Before the flight, he also gave her a long black dress he retrieved from an imaginary store and asked her to wear it. A deeply weird, almost creepy concept, but at this point that ship has definitely sailed.

When Lucifer’s hands appear in front of him, a crown sits in his palms, iron-cast and twisting in intricate lines that end up in pointy spikes, much like the top of the entrance gate.

"I never wear it anymore,” he tells her, “but at least once I want you to wear it. Careful not to touch the spikes though – demon metal and all that.”

He almost sounds sheepish, so unnatural for him, and Chloe can’t really refuse. She tilts her head down and lets him place the crown on her head; it’s heavy and large and it threatens to slide down her hair, making her feel like a child playing dress-up, like Trixie when she used to try and wear her police uniform, head disappearing under the too-big cop hat.

And maybe she _is_ playing dress-up, or a way more dangerous game, pretending to be a mythological figure or a supernatural being when all she is... is Chloe. Just Chloe. But standing before her is the King of Hell, and if he wants to crown her his queen, even if it doesn’t really mean anything, she’ll let him.

"It suits you" Lucifer says once he manages to stop the crown from sliding to the side, a clear indication of the opposite, if you ask her. “It’s too bad I can’t give you a proper coronation, I'm just not sure how the demons will react. Now that I think about it though, the only silver lining of being my devilish self is that I can do whatever the bloody Hell I want, isn’t it?”

"It’s okay" Chloe stops him, placing a hand on his chest before he puts his party-planner skills to use and organizes some kind of demonic gala. “I don’t need anyone else to know, as long as I'm yours.”

Lucifer smiles, then leans in to kiss her, holding her chin between his thumb and index finger.

"All hail Chloe Jane Decker, modern Persephone and Queen of Hell" he whispers against her lips before a longer, dirtier kiss. He lifts her up and twirls with her in his arms, one hand coming up as quick as lightning to stop the crown from falling with the motion. When he puts her down, his arms stay wrapped around her, caressing the expanse of her back left exposed by the dress he gave her.

"When will you be back?” he asks, eyes full of love and lust.

"I don’t know” Chloe admits, toying with the short hair at the base of his neck – they do this now, they revel in small possessive gestures of intimacy that are all foreign and exciting even after a month spent doing... well, mostly having sex. “I'll have to check in with Linda, Maze and Amenadiel. They keep watch while I'm... you know.”

It might seem absurd that they didn’t discuss the more practical details of the ordeal this whole time, but they truly didn’t, too caught up in each other to remember there is a world above, a world Chloe will come back to every time she wakes up. She still doesn’t know how she’ll manage to compartmentalize and separate the two sides of what is her new life now: detective and mother on Earth, Lucifer's companion - _queen_ \- in Hell. And she still struggles to wrap her mind around the fact that once she’ll open her eyes, only an hour will have passed. It will be like living another life entirely behind her closed eyelids.

"Right" Lucifer croaks, swallowing loudly at the reminder of how human she is, of the fact that someone might need to take special measures to keep her alive while her soul wanders off on these extracorporeal field trips of sorts. He clears his throat and adds, “Well, I'll be waiting.”

And she knows he will. For years at a time, her Hades will long for her in the dark.

They wait together for the moment of her departure, not knowing what will happen exactly – proof of how insane everything is, because this is uncharted territory even for someone as ancient as Lucifer. He stares at her intently, afraid to avert his gaze for a moment, get distracted and not find her again once he looks back up.

When it happens, it’s an incredibly peaceful feeling for Chloe, different from when her soul left her body with a shudder because now it’s time to return, and her mortal form is calling to her. She just fades away, slowly, ashes and air filling the increasingly empty space left behind.

Lucifer kisses her hand as she goes, curtsies like a prince bidding a dame farewell after a castle ball, and after all they did dance, barefoot in the heart of the Underworld as Lucifer sang for her and her only, even intoning the melodies of love songs in her ear.

And when he stopped singing but kept spinning her around in the silence he told her of that one time he had a chat with Cristopher Marlowe and inadvertently inspired his famous devilish play, and of how terrible the Middle Age was - _The Black Death was such a busy time, for a moment there I thought we had reached our full capacity!_ \- and many other funny stories of all the times he crossed path with humanity; but in the end, as Chloe looks at him, she only thinks of how bright he must have been in the very beginning, still surrounded by Heavenly light – her morning star, son of the dawn.


	5. Chapter 5

After one hour on the clock, not one minute less, not one minute more, Decker lets out a soft gasp and opens her eyes slowly, looking around the room in slight confusion.

_If she suffered some form of brain damage and I get stuck with a blabbering mess in my house, I'll kill you all_, Maze vows to herself.

"Oh my God, Chloe, are you okay?” Linda exclaims as she jumps up from the chair she has been sitting on, her piercing voice startling the groggy detective on the bed. “You- you know who we are, right?”

"You’re scaring her, Linda, relax" Maze tells her, rolling her eyes. Still, she has to admit she is curious herself: did Chloe really manage to go to Hell and _back_? I mean, go figure. And to think she always found her dull and predictable.

"Yes, I’m okay" Chloe replies, sitting up and earning a sigh of relief from Amenadiel as he approaches her from the other corner. “I'm... I'm great, actually.”

Her smile seems blissfully content and Mazikeen recognizes it all to well. _He finally popped the cherry, that smug, lucky bastard._

"You had sex, didn’t you?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. From the other side of the bed, Amenadiel groans in frustration.

"Do we really have to talk about-"

"Yes!" Chloe cuts him off with excitement, before catching herself and trying to regain her composure, smiling shyly. “I mean, among other things, of course.”

_Yeah, right. So many things to do in that frozen wasteland of absolute nothingness._

"Was there any horn-riding involved?”

Chloe gapes at her as her cheeks flush red, making Maze laugh out loud. Decker is such an easy target to tease, and at least now Maze actually has _something_ to tease her about. Her trip to Hell might easily be the most interesting thing she’ll ever do, and the funny part is that she won’t be able to tell anyone apart from the three of them.

"What does that even mean?” asks Amenadiel, his hands flailing in the air, before Linda steps forward and shushes him with a soothing gesture. She shoots Maze one of her grave doctor-looks, then shakes her head.

"Oookay, let’s say I thought this would be a more... _mystical_ experience," she admits, looking at all of them in turn, “you know, Chloe revealing some dark truth about the afterlife or something. Anyway... how is Lucifer?”

The question seems to sadden Mazikeen's flatmate, and automatically everyone present.

"Lonely" Chloe replies, her tone hollow. “He misses all of you.”  
  
_At least he has you again_, Maze thinks, still reeling from Eve's departure for not-even-God-knows-where. _At least he has what he has always wanted._

It’s not fair to him, not entirely, but things have never been fair between them, always twisted and poisoned by betrayals and double crossings and hidden intentions. The time when she was his right hand, the executioner of his evil flights of fancy, is long gone and buried under his more recent schemes and her reckless, vindictive choices.

But the way he left out of sheer selflessness, without so much as a warning so that no one could talk him out of it, might just be the grandest of all his manipulations, because now Maze can’t be _mad_ at him, an emotion that has always helped her in the past, giving her a purpose.

She remembers the sinking feeling in her stomach when she found Chloe on the balcony of the penthouse, crying softly as she gripped the railing and stared ahead in the distance. “He’s gone," she had told Maze, “he’s gone and he won’t come back". And Maze’s first thought, before she could fully process and grasp the reason behind his decision, was _You had her right here at your fingertips and you let her go again, you ungrateful idiot._

But Chloe refused to accept that it was over, and in the end Lucifer _still_ managed to win. Because he always wins, isn’t it so? The same way he gets away with everything, with flaunting countless one-night stands under Chloe’s nose all the way to his very first lover; with recounting the details of his sex parties at her desk as she pretends not to care, her pining so obvious even to a demon like her who isn’t supposed to know anything about how basic human emotions function.

He breaks Eve's heart by leaving her and she still mopes for him; he breaks Chloe’s heart by leaving Earth and she finds a way into Hell. It’s a marvellous thing, how no one seems to notice and connect the dots except for Maze. But the cruel thing, the incredible irony of her existence, is that despite all of this she still. can’t. hate him. Because by staying away Lucifer is keeping Charlie safe, and Maze loves Charlie; or at least, feels the need to stand guard next to his crib with her demon knives in hand for entire nights, which is love in her book.

When her mind drifts back to the present, she catches glimpses of the actions and conversations going on around her, of Linda checking Chloe’s heart rate and vitals, of Decker asking for something sweet because she says she feels a bit weak so Amenadiel goes to the kitchen and comes back with a chocolate bar. All this trouble, all this danger, for _him_. He truly is one lucky Devil.

"All in all, you seem fine for someone who’s been to Hell and back" Linda concludes after her quick check-up; Maze internally rolls her eyes at the thousands of dollars of medical equipment they seem to have spent for no reason, but it’s Lucifer’s money, so she figures this can be an indirect way for him to contribute, plus it’s only money. “But take it easy and don’t get up until you feel a bit stronger, alright?”

"Yeah" Chloe replies quietly, lying back down on the bed. Maze watches her as she closes her eyes and wonders what she thinks of Hell, of her home or what used to be it. She could ask her a thousand questions or tell her things instead: reassurances or scary bits of new information that would make her eyes grow wide with fear - _Is my mother as charming as always? Have you seen her by any chance?_

Instead, when Linda silently gestures for her to leave the room and let Chloe rest, Mazikeen steps closer to the bed and says, “Tell him I said hi next time you go, okay?”

It’s just a small courtesy, nothing, really, but Chloe seems way too smug for Mazikeen’s liking when she opens one eye at her, gives her a knowing smile and says, “Sure, Maze.”

*

They find a routine that works for everyone, making arrangements for Chloe to sleep at Linda’s house periodically; it’s a bit like booking therapy sessions, the only difference being that the cure to Chloe’s illness is leaving her body so her soul can take a vacation. Linda is often tired by her daily discoveries of the joys and struggles of motherhood, but she insists that she wants to be present and vigil every time Chloe eats a pomegranate seed, so the trick is finding windows of time between Chloe’s working hours and Linda’s needs.

Chloe has realized she can’t just go visit Lucifer every night like she had initially assumed, because just one hour away left her feeling incredibly tired, as if she just ran a marathon, and it took her a while to regain her energy. She couldn’t possibly go to work in the morning after experiencing sleep that is not real sleep. So she only goes to Linda’s house on the weekends when Dan has Trixie, allowing herself time to recover in the morning, and decides she’ll slowly add one seed each time instead of going all-in.

So the second time, it’s two seeds, two Earth-hours, two Hell-months.

The Lucifer she finds once she crosses the gates – unopposed, because the guards clearly got the message – is a bit different than before, as Hell starts to take its toll on him again. It takes longer for Chloe to chase away his sadness with her kisses, longer to make him laugh, but this time they have two months and after the initial uneasiness of not knowing how to deal with him, things seem to go smoothly.

She leaves, then she comes back, as two hours/months turn to three, then four, then five with intervals of a week or more in between – an amount of time that for Lucifer is endless instead, which Chloe feels guilty about, but of course he never even mentions it.

"I'll take what I can get” he tells her when she tries to breach the subject, and a small part of Chloe feels like she’s condemning him to a whole new loop as he finds her and loses her and finds her again, as each time when she leaves he looks sadder, and each time when she arrives he looks more exhausted by the wait.

It’s a variable she had not taken into account, and that apparently he had underestimated, reassured by how used to eternity he is. But knowing you will spend forever alone is clearly different than clinging to a hope that comes and goes, left hanging by a thread and craving for more, like an addict who doesn’t know when his next fix will be but is sure he’ll manage to get it, somehow.

"Do you want me stop coming?” Chloe whispers in the dark sometimes, voice feeble and scared, but Lucifer only tightens his hold around her and tells her “No, please, no, never".

The issue of what to do besides sex, and there is a lot of that going around, is solved when Lucifer decides to fall into this silly routine of stealing increasingly absurd things from Hell loops to carry them all the way inside his upside-down palace - _their_ palace, he insists, at least when Chloe is there for a visit. Furry restaurant mascots that Chloe refuses to wear because they remind her too much of a terrible case she had to solve by going undercover at a convention; porn videos in a misguided attempt to show her just how many positions she doesn’t know exist (she refuses to watch them as well); board games they play for hours to remind each other of long-lost Monopoly nights by the fireplace.

They don’t really get any fun out of it, like Amenadiel had explained: it’s a fleeting sense of entertainment that feels like they are observing themselves play more than actually playing, the boredom of watching a sports game you don’t really care to learn the rules of. But it’s a way to pass the time, and time flows slowly, oh-so-slowly when it has no intention of ending.

They make love away from prying demon eyes on a stolen mattress on the floor, like teenagers sneaking off to a garage or a storage room to get their first thrill of intimacy, and this part is perfect, it’s Heaven even down in Hell. It might have something to do with the fact that Chloe’s soul is literally naked without the body that accompanies it, so every touch, every sigh, every moan feels and sounds ten times more real in a world where everything else is an illusion, a deception, a trick.

Afterwards, when they rest in each other’s arms, Chloe enjoys telling Lucifer all about the people they both care about: Charlie’s funny faces at certain flavors when Linda decides to experiment with new types of baby food (Lucifer's nose scrunches up in disgust at the thought and Chloe forces herself not to tell him that’s actually the face she was referring to); murder cases that drive her, Dan and Ella insane, to which Lucifer gives his input with interest, feeling useful; Trixie’s achievements at school and at knife-throwing, which put a proud smile on Lucifer’s face and make Chloe sigh in resignation.

But the more Lucifer listens and answers to the tales of all these lives marching on without him, the more Chloe feels like a wife visiting a prisoner serving a life sentence in jail, torturing him with letters and pictures of things he’ll never see and words he'll never hear. It starts to feel... cruel. She mourns for the domesticity they will never have, for the fact that they will never take a walk together in a park or swim in the sea or take Lucifer’s Corvette and just drive to wherever they feel like going.

She never imagined them married, never entertained the prospect of a family with him, but it’s a possibility that has been stolen from them and she mourns for that as well.

And yet, she can’t stop, she won’t stop. Because she doesn’t want to, as selfish as it may seem, and this time there is no Eve to give Lucifer away to hoping he'll be happier, no greater good to fulfill; there is only them, and they have worked so hard to meet again. Because all her complaints are things she was already mourning for after he left, but at least now she can be with him.

Because Lucifer made her his Queen and in her heart, to Chloe that feels like a promise, like a bond it’s not her place to break. Because Persephone would never have told Hades that she chose life on Earth over him, not permanently at least. And because when the fifth month of her longest stay yet is almost at an end, Lucifer seems to know exactly what she’s thinking.

"Before you go, I want you to know something" her King tells her, squeezing her hands. “If you _ever_ decide to stop coming here, I won’t ask you to stay. I will respect your choice. But Chloe, as long as you _want_ to be here... just know that the torment of never seeing you again would be far greater than the agony of any wait, for me.”

And Chloe believes him, because the Devil never lies.

*

She thinks the years he spends waiting are an issue; doesn’t know he'd sit idle for eons just to see her smile. It’s hard, Lucifer won’t deny, but he can take it and he will, because it’s not like there is much else to look forward to. It’s what the Detective does, sometimes, not with her cases but often with him: she puts the clues together but comes to the wrong conclusion.

While she’s gone, he fills what has become their private chamber, attached to the pomegranate room, with furniture and elegant dresses for her to wear, trying to create a semblance of warmth, of normality, of home. He never really contemplated the thought of redecorating before, disgusted by what is, at the end of the day, a twisted mockery of the life he lost, but he'll do anything to make the place more comfortable for his Queen, anything to make her feel more at ease.

He attends his fair share of tortures, pays the most relentless masochists a visit - _Where have you been, my King?_, they cry, _Have you forgotten me?_ \- or spends his time in Hell’s version of a dining room on the first floor of the palace. He eats food that doesn’t satisfy his appetite, drinks himself into a state of, well, nothing; smokes cigarettes that don’t burn in his lungs and joints that don’t give him a high, as the lesser demons tasked with cleaning up after him, gargoyle-looking and deformed, scurry around him in a haste.

They never really talk to him, if not to respond to his orders, until one day after the most recent of Chloe’s departures, one does.

"When- when is the Queen coming back, my Lord?” asks the little monster as he clears his plate, startling Lucifer from his long puff of bland marijuana. He stirs languidly from where he’s sitting, legs propped up on the wooden table in front of him and head thrown back in a bliss he’s forced to fake.

"The Queen, is it?” he inquires with an arched eyebrow, looking down at the creature in amusement – turns out they didn’t need an official coronation to notice, the little rascals. “I don’t know, she only comes when she can. Why?”

There is suspicion in his last question, and the demon flinches and rushes to explain, “No- no reason, sire, we just... we know our Lord is pleased, when she’s here.”

_You can bet your ugly arse I am._

Lucifer chuckles darkly, taking another long puff. He knows what the demon actually means is that when Chloe is here, he is so distracted and happy that they can catch a break from his temper.

"I didn’t think your kind could be this perceptive! Consider me impressed" he praises anyway, the demon’s face twisting in what is the version of a smile its nature allows. “Say, what do _you_ think of her?”

The question takes the servant by surprise: Lucifer never asks for their opinion, and even now it’s just a game to pass the time, although he has to admit... it would actually make him proud, in a very weird way, to know the Detective has managed to sway even demons with her grace.

"Oh, she’s beautiful, sire, a soul worthy of your power, your magnificence!” comes the answer in a surge of unnecessary servility, the one that makes him gag.

"Mmm. She is, isn’t she? Well, off you pop" Lucifer concludes, shooing the demon away with a bored flick of his wrist.

And so he waits, for years he waits, not knowing that this time, someone else will come to see him before she can.


	6. Chapter 6

“Chloe, this whole thing has to stop" Linda blurts out to her friend while they sip at steaming mugs of herbal tea in her living room. Chloe stills and looks at her in surprise, then furrows her brow.

“Why?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Linda can only assume she is underestimating the situation, too stubborn and sure of her strength, or maybe she just has a very bad case of denial. _That’s a river in Egypt_, quips the Lucifer of her thoughts.

She has tried to hint at it along the way, but Chloe always tells her she’ll be fine, and to be fair she has always recovered, although more slowly each time. It takes longer for her to wake up too, once the clock strikes the exact time that marks the end of the journey. Linda just has a bad, bad feeling about this, is all.

"I don’t like how weak you get, after" the therapist explains. “What does Lucifer say about it?”

A small wave of shame washes over Chloe’s features, making Linda lower her mug on the table and cross her arms over her chest where she’s sitting.

"You don’t discuss it with him, do you?”

Chloe shakes her head minutely, looking down at her lap.

"You know how he is. He would tell me to stop.”

_At least he'd be able to knock some sense into you_, Linda thinks.

It’s a shame, truly, because her detective friend is so much happier now. She bounces up from the bed once her energy is restored, and tells them all about her secret kingdom over breakfast – she is Lucifer’s queen now, whatever that means, a discovery that makes Amenadiel choke around his food and earns a sultry, impressed look from Maze the first time Chloe shares it with them.

And Linda could listen to her for hours, which she does, because her little human mind feels overwhelmed and special at the thought of finding out things that billions of people don’t have the slightest clue about. It’s a blessing and a curse, Amenadiel always tells her, to be graced with the notion of the divine. Because they are only human. At some point it’s bound to become too much, and maybe that point has arrived.

"Listen, it’s been too long already and I don’t want to keep him waiting" Chloe speaks up again, bringing Linda back to the present – they already arranged for her next trip to happen in a few days, for six hours this time. “But I'll tell you what: once I'm back, I won’t use the new seeds for a while and... we can do research together. You know, to find something that might help for next time.”

Linda doesn’t like the resolve in her voice, and this isn’t what she actually meant. As cruel as it is, a part of her just thinks that maybe Chloe needs to say goodbye. That she’s not meant to live a life split in half. It breaks her heart to see the lengths Chloe will go to for Lucifer, after years witnessing _him_ do the exact same thing.

Linda and Amenadiel told her of what he did to save her from the poisoning, once Lucifer left and Chloe was stuck with a thousand questions in her mind. But Linda didn’t mention how Lucifer stumbled out of the bed, almost collapsing to the floor as he ran, not giving himself a moment to recover from death despite the electricity coursing in his body, making even his celestial legs go weak – the product of his vulnerability when Chloe is around. She didn’t have the guts to say how pale he had been, like a ghost rising up from his own corpse.

Lucifer _died_ for Chloe, and Linda is terrified Chloe will end up doing the same without even meaning to.

That’s why her heart is not really in it, when she answers with a whispered “Okay".

The next day, she asks Amenadiel to go and talk to Lucifer. It feels like a betrayal to Chloe and it probably is but she can’t shake her worry away unless she does something about it. After she’s done explaining, Amenadiel stares at her for a long moment, and when he speaks he says something Linda didn’t expect.

"I don’t think it’s wise to go and put him on edge if you’re not sure Chloe’s life is actually at risk.”

Linda blinks at him in surprise and disbelief.

"But- but what if it is?” she asks, raising her voice in exasperation. Why do people keep dragging her into their plans only to ignore her sound medical advice?! Sometimes she feels like she’s still in a therapy session with Lucifer.

Amenadiel gives her one of his long, wise stares that betray how old he truly is, making her suddenly selfconscious and aware of just how many things he’s seen that she will always struggle to understand.

"You don’t have to worry, Linda" he tells her, his big eyes turning sad. “Because if it is, someone else will make sure to inform Lucifer in time, and you can believe me when I say he’ll listen.”

*

Azrael lands quietly next to her brother, who is standing on a ridge overlooking the expanse of the Underworld below. His throne thrusts up into the sky even higher than where they are, disappearing into the looming, threatening clouds that condemn sinners to a barely-lit eternity. Not darkness, not entirely: it always looks like a sliver of light might sneak its way in, but it never does, never will.

"Rae-Rae,” Lucifer greets her, acknowledging her presence with a raised eyebrow, “fancy seeing you here. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Azrael hates how guarded he is, how different from the way he used to be. She can’t stand to see him unhappy but knows the news she’s about to share will only make it worse. It’s the story of her life, her gift and her curse, the task of bearing the most unwelcome news there is: Death.

"I came to tell you that you need to stop" she answers as she folds her wings back inside herself, trying to be as stern as she can. Lucifer finally turns around to look at her, averting his gaze from his wretched, unwanted kingdom.

"Stop what?” he asks with a defiant tone, because they both know what Azrael is talking about but he always likes to be a bit more difficult than necessary, at least with her.

"Letting her come down here" replies the angel of Death. Lucifer scoffs and looks away again, exactly as she expected he would do. “How could you indulge her in this folly, brother?”

Lucifer’s nostrils flare and for a fraction of a second, Azrael thinks his eyes will light up with fire, but they don’t.

"You should know me better than to think I would stand in the way of a human's free will" he bites back coldly, with that elegant, effortless pride that has always been his and his alone and that was always going to be his downfall, one way or another. “Especially hers.”

"It was her will to _ask_ you, and it should have been your will to refuse" she insists, and it’s a weird feeling to be the one scolding him and telling him to do better, because eons ago he was the one she looked up to the most.

"Well, it wasn’t, so I didn’t” Lucifer concludes, his arms now crossed over his chest. There’s a pause, suspicion brooding in his eyes. “Did Father send you here?”

Another one of his trademark questions - _You are becoming too predictable, big brother._

"No, Lu" Azrael tells him, and as decisive as she’s trying to be, she can’t help but soften her tone whenever the nickname spills from her mouth, almost out of its own volition. “I- I felt it. Her soul is starting to call me. Hell is claiming her for its own, despite the fact that she doesn’t deserve to end up here.”

The information shakes Lucifer from his cold composure; his jaw tightens, the color drains from his face, his eyes melt into pools of liquid anguish. He’s finally realizing she isn’t here to reprimand him for misbehaving, but to save him from a monumental mistake.

"Chloe- Chloe is dying?” he whispers, afraid to say it loudly.

"A bit more every time she comes to visit" Azrael confirms, hating that this is her role in this story – at least she was some sort of guardian angel in Lucifer’s eyes, before, as Ella’s keeper and companion. “You need to let her go, Luce. Next time has to be the last.”

His gaze hardens like stone, the way it became right before the Fall as he looked at all the siblings that had not taken his side – Azrael had refused to fight against him but had not helped him in his rebellion, either. Sometimes she wonders if he resents her for it, but he never actually said it.

"It’s always me having to let things go, isn’t it?” he asks her, harsh, accusing, full of resentment. Not at her, specifically. At least she hopes.

"What do you want me to say, Lu? She’s a mortal, but she’s not _dead_ yet. You really thought there wouldn’t be consequences in the long run?”

The sentence seems to stab him, hit him where he’s already weak, as he turns his rage against himself and his naivety.

"I don’t know what I was thinking” he confesses, a clueless sinner admitting an involuntary fault. “I just wanted her with me.”

He unfurls his wings then, pearly white feathers shining – the pride of Father, Azrael knows, even though it’s not her place to accuse Him of vanity; the most beautiful in the Silver City, source of jealousy for the lesser angels of the Heavens.

"I’ll take care of it, don’t worry" Lucifer tells her distantly, and he’s suddenly so pale that Azrael feels like he’s talking from his grave, a grave he'll never rest in – because there won’t ever be rest, not for them. “Smell you later, Rae-Rae.”

With that, he soars, until he’s a black spot in the distance, sitting on his throne among the clouds.

*

He _really_ didn’t know what he was thinking, did he? _I am poison to everything I touch_, his full Devil form whispers darkly in his head. _Look at what I put you through._

Chloe is dying and doesn’t know it, or she’s carefully treading along the very thin line between her world and his, and Lucifer is _letting_ her. For the first time in a long while, he feels like he actually inspired an evil deed although it didn’t look like one as it unfolded. He’s been selfish, so selfish to steal her away, Hades on his golden chariot dragged by immortal horses, kidnapping a nymph as she picks flowers in the grass.

He feels like he’s used her to satiate his hunger for humanity, beautifully imperfect humanity that is the pride of his Father and keeps puzzling the arrogant minds of the angels with how unholy it is, full of faults and ugliness, but glowing with the spark of always striving to keep going, to feel alive, to be better.

Humanity that shines through from her skin when she laughs and seeps into Lucifer’s when she sighs under his touch. Humanity that shakes him from the stillness of his immortal existence with desires to fulfill and favors to give out and cases to solve, or at least used to.

He’s almost about to tear their room apart in a fit of rage when he’s done seething at the top of his throne and descends into his God-forsaken palace, but he can’t. Chloe will be back. Six months this time, she said, she _promised_. Azrael conceded him one last time before it’s too late, so he'll let her. But after that, no more. After that, darkness and damnation, the way it was always supposed to be, he sees it now. He should have just accepted it from the start, and he actually thought he had, when he left.

It’s time to put an end to this, and there is only one way to truly do it. Hopefully, Chloe will never know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was kinda small but it sets the stage for the next one which is where s*** hits the fan, pardon my French!


	7. Chapter 7

The next time his Queen comes to visit, Lucifer waits for the last day of her stay to inform her that her reign has come to an end: after all, he is Hades in this story, who tells Persephone to go back to Earth and live her life, but with no tricks or manipulations to force her return, in this version.

He waits and savors her presence like a man who knows he'll starve for the rest of his life without ever actually dying from it. If Chloe picks up on it, on the way he hoists her up and takes her against the wall of their private chamber before their time runs out, fingers digging into her flesh to imprint _goodbye_ and _I love you_ on her skin, she doesn’t say.

To Lucifer, it feels like his whole life has just been one long goodbye to things he wants but can’t have.

There should still be a bit of time left, roughly an hour. They are lying naked, afterwards, on the bed he snuck into the room from a loop that takes place in a mall; an improvement from the initial mattress on the floor, the least he could do for his Persephone when she pries the ground open and disappears in the bowels of the Earth to light up the Underworld with the brightness of her smile.

Chloe is on her side, her head propped up on her hand, strands of gold cascading over her front as Lucifer mirrors her position and skims his fingers from her shoulder to her hipbone in a neverending, hypnotic motion – a Heaven loop of sorts, if you will, one that sadly won’t last. He tells himself that everything is a bonus, that this is something he thought he would never have and now he has it, so it should be enough.

It isn’t.

"Chloe,” he whispers, candlelight twisting her features, distorting the lines of a face he might never see again, “we need to talk.”

She stiffens under his fingertips, and he hates that the moment is ruined, but it’s not fair to send her off at the last moment and let her think she’ll be back. She won’t, because she’s out of pomegranate seeds from Hell and today he was supposed to give her another bunch, but it’s not how this will go. They cheated fate and now fate wants its due.

"Okay,” hesitates the Queen of the Underworld, the only queen he'll ever have, “what’s wrong?”

Lucifer tucks a strand of gold behind her ear before answering, a cowardly gesture to buy himself an insignificant fraction of time before the inevitable.

"This is the last time you’re coming here. It has become too risky. We’ve been too reckless.”

She sits up, her hair now covering her breasts, her eyes hard.

"Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” she asks, a stab at his love for free will, and it hurts because of course she knows where to hurt; but then her voice turns soft and vulnerable because she’s the one baring her weakness to him. “You said you'd never want me to leave and that you would respect my choices. Unless... unless you’ve changed your mind. If the wait is too hard on you, I-"

"I haven’t changed my mind, but this isn't about me. It’s not even a _choice_ anymore. Not mine, not yours. Your soul is weakening, Chloe" Lucifer tells her, sitting up on the mattress as well. “Hell is tightening its claws on it. On _you_.”

Chloe gasps a little at what he just said, at the realization of what it could mean: this might be her kingdom under her eyelids when she goes to sleep on Earth, but it’s not here that she’s supposed to come to rest. Lucifer knows she must have felt something, maybe experienced some difficulties in waking up the last few times, but denial is a powerful force – and for them it seems to have a special fondness, after years spent burying their feelings for each other under work or fear or the love of other people.

"Amenadiel, Linda and I are on it" Chloe tries to reassure him, as if it’s not a big deal, but her voice betrays her uncertainty. “I'll take a break and in the meantime, I'm sure we’ll figure something out.”

_And when were you planning on telling me this?_, Lucifer thinks bitterly, but quickly decides that it’s not worth fighting over it: maybe Chloe was waiting for the last moment of her stay too, and he just beat her to it. Besides, she thinks she’s coming back. As for Amenadiel and Linda, he knows them well enough to realize they are just humoring Chloe for now, but perfectly understand the gravity of the situation.

"In the meantime?” he inquires anyway, worried by his lover's resolve.

"Yes, until my next visit” she says matter-of-factly, the modern Persephone who fell in love with Hades _before_ following him into the darkness of the Underworld and now refuses to confine herself to the light of day, leaving the earth barren in her absence.

"There won’t be a next visit" Lucifer insists. He made sure of it after Azrael's warning, but hopes he'll be able to convince Chloe with his words only and spare her unnecessary sorrow. She seems clueless to the seriousness of his statement, because she marches on.

"Just let me handle it" she pleads, stubborn as always, but this time Lucifer can’t indulge her. “I know I can do it.”

"You can’t” Lucifer contradicts, smiling a sad smile. He lifts his hand again to cup her cheek but she pushes it away, offended, bristling, and the refusal stings too much for his liking, always has when it’s from her.

"All you ever do is make decisions for both of us” she accuses him as she abruptly stands up from the bed to retrieve her dress from the floor and put it back on – deep burgundy, long and smooth and curving in all the right places, a type of garment she'd probably never wear in the mortal world where she’s Detective Decker; no, where she's _the Detective_.

Lucifer hoped this would be a more peaceful resolution, but as usual he has been kidding himself. He stands up and puts his trousers back on, just in case Chloe decides to storm out of the room in a fit of rage and he has to follow – he’s never been shy about his nudity but this, the proof of their intimacy, is something he doesn’t want the demons of Hell to taint with their dirty stares.

"Do you think I want to?” he asks, trying not to show the full depth of his exasperation and heartbreak, and probably failing. “Do you think I want to say goodbye to you again? I'm doing this for you!”

_You can’t leave me_, another Chloe whispers in his ear from the past, twisting a knife deeper into his heart. _Please, don't go._ But while leaving is something he knows how to do by now – for Vegas or Hell or nights of meaningless sex and drugged stupor – pushing Chloe away with actual words has never been easy for him, hence the running.

"If you don’t want to say goodbye, then don't! We could try and find a solution _together_, instead!” proposes the Chloe from his present – he wouldn’t call her real because she isn’t either, because her mortal body is where he cannot reach it and it’s her soul, tangible under his fingers, that is staring back at him. “Some- some fruit or some relic that could give me the power to-"

"You’re not supposed to _be_ here!” he cuts her off, breaking the fog of her illusions before she starts looking for another book to dig into for answers. He has looked and thought of everything and has come up empty. It’s over. “There is no easy fix for this! You're not dead, but Hell- it has a mind of its own and it’s starting to think you are! It’s too dangerous for you!”

She is giving in, Lucifer knows she is, but the fierceness of her love for him compels her to try harder and it’s the only consolation he'll get out of this whole ordeal: the knowledge of how far she’d go for him, literally to the forgotten core of the Earth and back. Her body seems to relax, and for a moment Lucifer thinks of filling the distance between them to touch her again, but then she speaks, softly yet coldly.

"You would actually _stop_ me from returning?”

So this is it, isn’t it? Is harshness and cruelty what she needs to let this go? Does she want to hear him banish her like a fallen queen who just lost a war? Must it really end like this, shouting in each other’s faces instead of kissing each other goodbye? The thought of her intentionally not making this any easier suddenly frustrates him, enrages him, even, and it’s terrifyingly simple for him to slip back into his Lord of the Underworld persona.

"I'd have the demons bar the gates to keep you out if necessary" he declares, puffing up his chest. _Are you satisfied, my Queen?_

Chloe scoffs, proud and defiant, and for a moment Lucifer wonders if crimson eyes would suit her.

"What would be the point of leaving me at the gates for months, once I've eaten another bunch of seeds and made it back here?!”

This time, Lucifer stiffens. Chloe notices. Everything is going to fall apart and he knows it.

"No" Chloe whispers, taking a step towards the door that leads to his indoor garden. “You- you wouldn’t-"

She turns and runs to the door, only to find it locked as it has been this whole time. Her nostrils flaring, she glares at him over her shoulder before taking a step backwards and slam her whole weight against the barrier, surprising Lucifer – but not really – with the strenght she can muster when the door gives out and opens in front of her, letting her into the other room.

Lucifer follows to find her staring at what is now a patch of grey, useless ashes on the stone floor. The tree is gone, ripped out with his bare hands in desperation, his fruits and seeds thrown in the fire of a Hell loop – a firefighter who was late and couldn’t save his own family from the flames, bound to burn with them for eternity. Lucifer couldn’t risk Chloe stealing a pomegranate while he wasn’t looking, turning into her own Hades, feeding herself a bite of Death as sweet and juicy as it might have been.

Still, to Chloe it looks and feels and burns like betrayal, and Lucifer knows betrayal all too well, knows it in his bones. He sees it in the way she trembles, in the fists she balls up at her sides, digging her nails into her own palms; in the way she gapes and stares at him with fire in her eyes, the fire she can’t conjure up like he can but that burns just as bright and scorching. Angry tears pool in their blue depths and Lucifer wishes he could fall into a darker hole than the one he’s ruling over.

"You said I could come back as long as it was what I wanted" she whispers, calmer than he expected, which might be even worse. “You _lied_.”

The accusation is a low blow, and she is aware of it. It makes Lucifer sway on his feet because he never lies, he didn’t lie but things _change_ and-

"How could you this to me? To _me_?” Chloe shouts, and Hell, if it isn't the wrong thing to say. The echo of a way too similar sentence, uttered from his lips in anguish in his L.A. penthouse, lingers in the air between them, poisoning his ash-filled lungs.

It’s true, he killed the only thing that gave them hope, uprooted the last tree that will ever grow by the divine powers of the waters of Eden. He twisted it and snapped it in half with his own hands as he screamed into the void, but only to do what was best: he is a pro at doing that when other people don’t see it, isn’t he? How does she not understand? Why can’t she _ever_ understand?

And Lucifer tries, oh, he tries, but venom crawls its way out of his throat and spills out, voicing a resentment he doesn’t truly feel anymore.

"You've done far worse to _me_, after all, haven’t you?”

He regrets it the moment it leaves his mouth, but it’s too late. Chloe’s face falls, exposing her vulnerability like an open wound that never healed, before it sharply shifts from guilt to anger toward him, anger at the fact that he’d use it against her after she shared her guilt with him about Father Kinley.

Chloe’s piercing eyes freeze him to the spot where he’s standing, their coldness almost chilling – fire was much better, because fury is something Lucifer understands. She stares at him in silence, hurt distorting her beautiful features, before she turns and stalks toward the door that leads to the main corridor of this floor of the palace.

The sudden movement wakes Lucifer from his stillness, as if breaking a spell; it almost reminds him of the way the world resumes its spinning motion after Amenadiel releases a frozen or slowed down moment from his angelic grip. It forces him to take action and go after Chloe because they barely have _time_ for this; for anything, really.

"Chloe, please, I didn’t mean it” he rushes to explain as he grabs her hand to try and stop her from leaving. She flinches and removes it from his grasp, echoing another painful memory: of Chloe recoiling from his touch, her shoulder jumping in terror while they were walking over a small bridge during their first case together after... well, Cain and his Devil face and the trip to Rome he wishes she never took.

"Don't touch me" Chloe warns, before storming out of the room and around a corner, disappearing to roam the heart of the Underworld alone which is something Lucifer really, really shouldn’t allow her to do. But the ringing in his ears is too loud to focus, the pain at her disgust too toxic to breathe, like acid in his throat.

He just stands there, in yet another garden he reduced to ashes and broken dreams, not knowing what to do.

*

Chloe turns the corner and walks down a random flight of stairs almost on autopilot, having absolutely no clue where she’s going and not even interested in finding out, as long as it’s far from the massacre she just witnessed. How could Lucifer give up so easily, without giving her a chance? Of course she noticed the toll her escapes are taking on her body, she's not _stupid_. She agreed to take a break and regroup, after all, didn’t she?

Does he really think she would risk her life when she has a daughter waiting for her at home? Does he not know that she would only come back if it was safe? And it would have been, it could have been, because there is always something: a myth or a book or a legend they don’t even know about, but that is out there and ready to solve all their problems. After her plan worked out, how could he doubt her?

And what he said – after everything, after she came all the way down here for him, he still resents her for what she did in the past? He knows she still feels guilty about it, because she _told_ him, and he still chose to bring it up and punch her in the gut with the force of it, hit her when she’s already on the ground?

_I went to Hell and back for you, and it’s still not enough_, she thinks, hurt, betrayed, defeated. _What do I have to do for you to truly forgive me, even if I can’t forgive myself?_

The tree is gone and there is no water to grow another one, no rabbit in the magician’s hat to save this show from a tragic, unrewarding finale. It’s gone because he killed it without even discussing it with her, because at the end of the day, all he does is _leave_. Deep down, she knows it’s unfair to blame him for leaving Earth, she knows it was the most sefless act she has ever seen a person do. But anger is boiling in her veins, anger at all the times he took it upon himself to decide what was best for both of them.

Instead, Chloe always asks him what he wants. Asks him if he’s happy with the way things are, asks him if she should leave and never come back, and he always tells her to stay. So she stays. Because it’s what they _both_ want. And now... now he is taking the fall, as usual, to protect her from something he thinks is greater than her.

But Chloe is not naive or blind or clueless anymore, a poor little detective to shield from the truth about the Devil. She is the Queen of Hell and she thought her king saw her as an equal, that her Hades had really put her on a throne next to his own, at least in his heart. Now he is Orpheus instead, leading his Eurydice out of the Underworld, but in their story he won’t look back.

Lucifer will always be a celestial, and she will always be a human, a being inferior to him by definition. He will always think he knows better.

_Maybe Lucifer was right about something. Maybe I’m not supposed to be here, anymore._

The stairs turn and turn until the space between the walls starts to get tighter, but Chloe keeps running down into what might as well be a tunnel with no end. Instead, there is an end. A door made of stone lies at the bottom, closed but not locked, like all the others - _The damned can leave whenever they want but none of them ever does_, Lucifer had explained.

But it shouldn’t be a cell, Chloe thinks, because there are no cells down inside the palace of the king: they are all on the surface, spread out around the base of the hellish throne. A secluded room is what she needs to clear her head, hopefully in time to go back up and... well, she doesn’t know what, exactly. Say goodbye? Again? Will she ever stop being forced to say goodbye to Lucifer?

But when she opens the door and steps inside, it’s not a room she finds. It’s a landscape of green and flower-covered hills, with a clear blue sky and a gentle spring sun. Birds chirp in the distance and the wind blows softly against her face. _How can this be Hell?_, she wonders as she distractedly shuts the door behind her, _and why didn’t Lucifer take me here to spend our time together?_

Of course, it will probably turn out to be another one of his little secrets, and Chloe is determined to find out what it is now. The light of the sun is almost blinding after several days spent in the darkness: her eyes are so not used to it that she has to squint and put a hand along her forehead to better take in her surroundings. Only by doing this she realizes she is not alone, here in a room that is not a room.

There is a pond at the center of her field of vision, surrounded by trees and small bushes. A woman is kneeling by its shore, giving her back to Chloe, doing something in the water that she can’t see. Whatever it is, she stops it abruptly and turns in Chloe’s direction, startled by her presence. Chloe feels her heart squeezing in her chest: surely, this isn’t some other woman Lucifer has been keeping from her, right? If she’s a damned soul, why is her cell so isolated and kept secret and why is her loop so beautiful?

The woman walks toward her now, her bare feet softly squishing the grass as she approaches. She is wearing a simple white dress that stops at her knees, so light it’s almost transparent, and her hair is dark and curly, tumbling down over her shoulders and chest in untamed locks made wild by the random leaves and twigs that got stuck among them. Her skin is smooth and fair but her eyes are black as coal. When she stops in front of Chloe, the door now forgotten behind her in the middle of the field, Chloe thinks she reminds her of someone but can’t really make out who.

"Are you lost?” the woman inquires, tilting her head to the side in curiosity and, oddly, fascination. Chloe doesn’t really know what to say, considering she has no clue as to where she is or who she’s talking to. She has never actually spoken to any of Hell's residents, if this woman is one - because it's too dangerous, Lucifer's voice reminds her, now unheard out of spite -, and isn’t really sure how to act or behave with someone who is, well, dead.

"I- I think so" she replies, one hand coming up to her face to rub at her eyes and cheeks quickly, suddenly self conscious about the fact that she’s been silently crying the whole time she was running down the stairs.

The woman studies her in a weird, unsettling, contemplative way that makes her quietly squirm under her gaze. Maybe this has been a mistake. Maybe she should-

"You’re not dead" the woman states abruptly, staring into her eyes with excitement before taking a long look at her body from head to toe. She smiles then, seemingly satisfied with herself. “You're _her_. You are Lucifer’s mortal queen.”

Chloe’s eyes grow wide, all her senses now on edge.

"How- how do you know who I am?” she asks, all too aware of the absence of a gun at her hip; not that it would help her in any way down here, but it’s always been a comforting feeling to know she can use it to protect herself and those she loves. But she is a long way from home, isn’t she?

"Demons like to tell me things" the woman intones with a musical lilt of amusement to her voice. “You’ve been the talk of the town for a while now, as sneaky as you try to be. It’s hard for them to come visit me down here, but lately their Lord has been _so_ distracted, and I finally understand why.”

Chloe takes a step back, hit by a sudden realization that makes everything click into place.

_She looks just like Eve._

Well, no, not exactly: she looks like a sharper, harsher version of her, rougher around the edges, lacking her innate softness. As childish and misguided as Eve has been, and despite the mess she caused, Chloe has always seen a gentle soul in her. Standing in front of her now is something much darker. It’s as if... as if God felt the need to make adjustments, creating a second version almost identical in appearance but with more delicate features and a kinder heart.

"You are Lilith, Adam’s first wife" Chloe concludes, a chill running down her spine. A flicker of annoyance flashes in the woman’s eyes at the mention of him, but it’s gone in an instant.

"Oooh, someone’s been reading her Scriptures!” grins the Queen of Demons.


	8. Chapter 8

Yes, Chloe _has_ been reading her Scriptures, and a whole lot of books and websites that didn’t actually help at all because when it comes to Lilith, history can’t seem to decide what to make of her. So Chloe will have to decide for herself, right here, or maybe not, because every fiber of her being is telling her to turn around and run.

Lilith, who tamed the beasts of the night, swiftly circles around her to stand between Chloe and the door. Chloe thinks of shoving her aside but for some reason, she can’t, glued to the spot by an overwhelming feeling of dread. Standing in the presence of yet another Biblical figure can do that to you, because to this, you never really get used to.

“How is Lucifer?” Lilith asks, smugness oozing out of her every move and feature. “I miss him so much, it’s been _ages_.”

“Lucifer comes here?” Chloe hears herself say automatically, hating how small her voice sounds when she adds, “To- to torture you?”

Lilith laughs aloud, twirling a strand of her dark hair around one slender finger as her eyes fill with mischief.

“Torture _me_? Sweetheart, I was the one doing the punishing" she explains, but Chloe’s furrowed brow encourages her to keep going. “Whenever he felt like he couldn’t take it anymore, being here, he came to me. Oh, the things he let me do to him. The pain never seemed to be enough.”

Chloe’s breath gets stuck in her throat. She shouldn’t hear this. It’s not her place. And she doesn’t _want_ to, either, because it hurts, it hurts so damn much.

“I think I should go-"

“But then, in time, I convinced him that there was another way to vent his frustration" the mother of demons cuts her off, inching closer, her smile wicked as she licks her lips sinfully. “After all, not everyone can take it rough like I can. His eyes never stopped flaming red as he had his way with me, hating himself for needing it – such a magnificent sight to behold.”

_Great, another one of Lucifer’s exes from the beginning of time_, Chloe quips to herself, but she doesn’t really feel mad or jealous this time. Another kind of pain grips her heart at the thought of Lucifer seeking Lilith to punish himself, no matter how. Maybe this is why Lilith’s cell is tucked so deep into the heart of the Underworld. For demons not to have easy access to her, making it harder for her to sway them to do whatever fancies her, and... and for Lucifer to try and forget she even exists, imprisoning her where he wouldn't just happen to walk by, unlike the surface of Hell.

Chloe has been sitting on this dark secret this whole time, literally walking and talking and kissing and making love a few floors up, but the revelation doesn’t fill her with anger. It’s a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, like receiving a punch to the gut: who knows how much of his suffering Lucifer still hides, how many things she’ll never be able to understand because he has been around since the very first dawn of the world and Chloe’s whole _life_ might not even last long enough for him to recount all that he’s seen or been through.

“I don’t want to hear this. Step aside" she says, her cop-voice resurfacing, as if telling a criminal to put his hands in the air and surrender. Lilith looks pleased with herself at how successful she was in upsetting her, but instead of complying, she steps closer, invading Chloe’s personal space.

“Fine, but first, let me send you off with a kiss" she answers, and it’s definitely the last thing Chloe expected her to say. “You know, from one queen to another.”

Before Chloe can escape her clutches, Lilith grabs her face with both of her hands and presses her lips to hers forcefully, suffocating the gasp that rises from Chloe’s throat. She suddenly feels weak at the knees, or more like everywhere, as if someone is draining all the energy from her body.

When the kiss ends, the world spins around her, then turns pitch-black.

*

Lilith breathes in through her nose and steadies herself, trying to get used to the feeling of inhabiting a mortal soul after a long, long time. It’s an ability she learned from the demons she tamed after escaping Eden, but usually, there is a body to possess as well. This time, the human shell of flesh and bones is lying somewhere on Earth, which makes the soul pliant and vulnerable, so open and willing for her to take control of it; but at the same time, the ritual can’t be performed completely so what she’s stuck with is a swap, but it will have to do.

She looks down at her dress, now burgundy red, and at her hair that is now golden and smooth. She imagines Lucifer running his hands through it, kissing the column of this fragile neck, undressing this minute body with his strong, harsh hands: how does he manage not to break it is beyond her. Honestly, how could he settle for such a meek mortal? She’s beautiful, no doubt, the proof of the Devil’s impeccable taste; but she doesn’t have enough fierceness or defiance to be a match for the Prince of Darkness.

On Earth, Lucifer always stayed away from Lilith, preferring the second female being God decided to create to satisfy the spoiled little brat that was supposed to be her husband. But when Lilith died, went to Hell and then found out that Eve was in Heaven instead, she was sure Lucifer wouldn’t resist the pull of her rotten soul for long.

Demons cheered and clapped when she first crossed the gates of Hell, earning the attention of the aloof King of the Underworld sitting on his throne in the dark grey sky. Back then he still wore his crown, its twisting iron spikes jutting up from his black locks; if Lilith closes her eyes she can still remember their sharp points sparkle in the distance, catching the thin rays of light randomly breaking the mass of clouds overhead for a fraction of a second. That day she entered her Hell loop willingly, in a cell that used to be among the others, before Lucifer decided to move it in a desperate attempt to stay away from her.

It worked for long periods of time, until it didn’t, especially after Lucifer’s most hated brother managed to get him back to Hell after one of his sneaky escapes to the mortal world. Bloodied and bruised after fighting his angelic sibling, Lucifer seethed with rage as he descended deep into the heart of his kingdom, so furious the walls would shake, distracting her from her loop and letting her know he was coming to pay her a visit.

Sometimes he took, some other times he ordered her to take, to hurt him until he forgot. And Lilith always thought _He'll make me his Queen, someday. He'll free me from this cell and let me rule Hell with him, finally giving all my demon children what they have always wanted._

But then, he left and didn’t return for a long, long time, a considerable portion of eternity. And when he _did_ return, Lilith heard the news of his broken heart over the mortal woman he had to leave behind, and later on, of how that same mortal woman had found a way to visit him in Hell without actually dying. A cleverness worthy of being rewarded, she has to admit, but also, a way in for _her_.

She smiles down at an unconscious Chloe Decker lying on the ground, now dressed in white and with curly black hair. It’s not easy for Lilith to leave her loop, but perfecting demonic possession over the years has given her an edge: her guilt now lies with Chloe, and she’s the one who will have to deal with it once she wakes up. Lilith will finally be the Queen of the Underworld with Lucifer none the wiser, as his one true love rots away in the depths of their kingdom for eternity.

With that in mind, she turns around and steps through a door that was never there for her to open before, to start a climb she’s been waiting to do for a lifetime.

*

Lucifer paces back and forth, scattering the ashes where the pomegranate tree used to be, literally stomping on the last shreds of a hope he fed and nurtured only to end up strangling in his iron grip. He wants to give Chloe the space she needs, but time is running out and it’s unfair for their story to end like this, with her disappearing and waking up in her body feeling hurt and betrayed.

He almost wishes she never found a way into Hell, because their goodbye on the balcony had at least been laced with words of love and acceptance. But he is kidding himself: every minute, every second Chloe spent as his queen was a blessing, not from his Father but holy and sacred nonetheless.

No, it cannot end like this. He can’t let it end like this. With a newfound resolve, he steps through the door and into the corridor to try and figure out where Chloe went: it’s a maze down here, and he’s scared she might get lost, scared of not finding her in time. And, deep down, scared of what she might find if she looks too hard, unearthing secrets of his hellish court he wishes would stay buried forever, even to her.

But before he can start running in the direction of her hasty escape, relief washes over him at the sight of Chloe reappearing. She looks calmer, almost content, a change that seems too sudden but Lucifer isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She walks toward him and the moment he knows she can hear him, he speaks.

“Listen, I'm sorry about the tree and I'm sorry about what I said, I- I don’t really hold that against you anymore, you need to know that!”

Chloe looks at him with a puzzled expression he can’t quite place, before responding in a soothing tone.

“I know. It’s okay" she tells him, with a smile that doesn’t truly reach her eyes. Maybe she’s still mad, but she’s trying not to be, which is an improvement at least. All Lucifer needs is to know that she’ll go willingly and that in time she’ll forgive him for not indulging her further in this very dangerous business she set her mind to.

“So you won’t try and find another way to come back, right? I told you, I just want you safe.”

He cups her cheek, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone. Chloe inhales his scent sharply through her nose and stares at him intently, then licks her lips – a gesture so unlike her that it gives Lucifer pause, leading him to still the movement of his thumb.

“Why would I go anywhere? I thought you wanted me to be your Queen, forever" she says, tilting her head to the side, before reaching out to cup his cheek in turn. She traces the line of his jaw with her index finger, drinking him in as if she hasn’t seen him in a millennia – maybe committing his features to memory before having to say goodbye, but what she just said contradicts that. It makes no sense, actually.

“Chloe, what are you talking about?” Lucifer asks, taking her hand in his to gently remove it from his face. “That isn’t possible, it would _kill_ you. What about Trixie?”

Chloe gulps, taken aback – _why is she taken aback?_

“What about her?” she answers suspiciously.

“What do you mean, _what about her_? You’re okay with never seeing her again?!”

The look of confusion on her face is wrong, so wrong: Trixie is the light of her life, which is precisely the reason Lucifer didn’t want to bring her up unless it was strictly necessary to talk sense into Chloe, because she might get mad at him for hitting her softest spot. In part, he also didn’t want to mention the little spawn because he feels guilty about the danger he is putting her mother in. And somewhere in that bundle of emotions he has inside he misses Chloe’s offspring, too; misses her innocence, her light, her young soul untouched by evil and sin.

“All I care about is you, Lucifer" Chloe whispers heatedly, stepping closer until she is crowding him against the wall of the corridor behind him. There is a different pattern to the way she speaks, as if her voice is a piano out of tune; he doesn’t recognize the music, doesn’t know how to play to this melody.

Chloe kisses him, catching him off guard. Lucifer inhales against the touch of her lips, unable to respond as he tries to understand what is happening to her. She groans at his stillness, raising herself on her tiptoes to press her body against his naked chest, sucking his lower lip into her mouth as one of her hands sneaks upwards to grip the back of his neck. Lucifer shudders, his palms pressed firmly against the wall to stop himself from touching her, because it’s Heaven, always Heaven when she kisses him, but not like this, not after what she said.

Chloe seems to grow impatient because she bites down on his lip, _hard_, so hard and long and cruel that her teeth dig into its flesh and draw blood from it. Lucifer pulls back in shock at the sting, but it’s not as shocking as the way Chloe is looking at him, licking a red drop from her own lip and grinning.

Lucifer can see it now: her eyes are not as blue as they should be, but darker, and wrong, wrong, _wrong_. The realization hits him like a demon blade to the chest, sucking the air out of his lungs.

“Lilith, what did you do?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be sure, I think it's better to warn that this chapter mentions the death of an infant. If it is a trigger for you, please be careful.  
After this, only the epilogue is left, guys!

Damn it, she really messed up, didn’t she? And to think she was so close to what she wanted, but she underestimated how hard it would be to _act_ like the fragile little woman Lucifer fancies these days. Lilith thought he needed a declaration of loyalty, for her to say that she would stay no matter what, instead it seems like he’s sending his queen away for real, not for some sort of test. And when he mentioned this “Trixie", she assumed all she had to do was reassure him of the fact that no one matters more than him, not even this clearly important person, whoever she is.

Isn’t this what he’s all about? Didn’t he fall for his pride, for his desire to be first, always? What the Hell has gotten into him? If he wants this mortal queen by his side, why doesn’t he just let her die so she can rule by his side until the end of days?  
  
Lilith doesn’t understand. Mostly, she feels disappointed. She knew the Prince of Darkness had gone soft, but she didn’t expect him to be this... _selfless._ Such a shame, because her plan is ruined now. But not to worry: she can still have a bit of fun; it’s been a while since she last did.

“You don’t like me in this form?” she asks the Not-So-Dark Lord, clutching the hem of Chloe’s dress to twirl around with a laugh. “Isn’t this just perfect? Her softness on the outside, but my fierceness on the inside? I'd say you’re one lucky Devil.”

Lucifer’s eyes turn red, his breathing rugged and uneven – oh, how much she’s missed this, how much she’s fantasized about all the ways she can make him suffer, stoking the flames of his hellish fury. He’s always been fire and this mortal woman is going to reduce him to a pile of smoking ashes, a pitiful ghost of the king he is.

And Eve might have let herself be tempted for a bit of adventure and sex and free will, but only Lilith knows the depths of his darkness, the blackness of his heart when you peel off the angelic mask he wears all the time. She never _needed_ him for any of those things, and down here, _she_ was the temptress, the snake whispering in his ear.

“_What did you do?_” Lucifer repeats through gritted teeth, shaking with rage, before slamming her against the opposite wall with a hand tight around her throat. He is a marvellous sight, always has been no matter the circumstances, but it’s when he’s at his worst that Lilith loves it the most.

“I'd be more careful if I were you" she tells him, feeling her voice – Chloe’s voice – rumble against his hot palm. “Wouldn’t want to leave a mark on her delicate skin.”

Lucifer takes a quick step backwards, moving his hand away immediately, his eyes wide and back to their normal color. It’s so easy to toy with him now, to use his weakness against him; so easy that it’s almost boring but Lilith doesn’t have a lot of chances at distraction and this one will have to do, she supposes. He won’t hurt her, not in this form, because he cares too much about his precious queen.

“Where is she?” he asks, and the fear in his tone sickens her, but gives her satisfaction at the same time.

“Taking care of a few things on my behalf" she declares smugly, twisting a strand of golden hair around her index finger. “It’s only fair that I take care of some _other_ things on hers.”

She walks toward him again until he’s pressed against the wall behind him. Lilith revels in the way he’s shaking, his nails digging into his palms to stop himself from doing something he'll regret. It’s a pity to see him tied to a leash of his own making; unnatural, really. She lifts a hand to trace the contours of his lips, the indentations of her teeth still fresh and bloody, but Lucifer gives up on his restraint, catching her wrist in a vice before she can touch him.

“_Enough_” he commands, applying a fraction of the pressure he’s capable of, she knows. “Come with me, you foul creature.”

_I wasn’t so foul when you were between my legs_, Lilith thinks, but still complies with a hint of mockery, “Yes, my Lord.”

Lucifer drags her along with him by Chloe’s wrist, down the stairs that lead to her cell. The air trembles and shifts with the intensity of his fury, a reminder of how things were when he would come visit her, but this time when they reach the bottom he’ll find someone else waiting inside.

Once they are in front of the door, he uses his free hand to grab a pair of shackles attached to the wall next to the entrance and puts the cuffs around both of her wrists, chaining her to the spot until his return. Lilith can only hope the guilt she transferred into Chloe has worked its magic by now, driving her into madness: a small silver lining in a sea of disappointments, one that will reduce Hell to smithereens with the force of Lucifer’s despair.

“Stay here" he orders, as if she could go anywhere – unless a wandering demon happens to pass by and free her, that is. You never know when luck might strike.

When all she responds with is a defiant grin, her eyes looking up at him from where she’s now sitting on the floor, Lucifer scoffs and opens the door, disappearing into the neverending nightmare of the only thing Lilith, Queen of Demons, ever regretted in her life.

_Good luck with that_, she chuckles to herself.

*

The story of Lilith is almost as old as time itself, and Lucifer is one of the only few people who know it. It starts with a rebellion, much like his own, an act of defiance and disobedience to his Father’s will.

When Lilith escaped the Garden of Eden, refusing to be considered inferior to Adam or anyone, demons already roamed the rest of the Earth, way before God decided they served a much better purpose in Hell. What history failed to report is that all those demons were His creations as well: botched versions of angels and humans the Lord wasn’t happy with, for one reason or the other; prototypes he tossed away to focus on his next attempt.

While the angels of the heavenly host were all products of His union with the Goddess, and therefore perfect, at this point in time the two almighty lovers had already grown apart, and God wanted to prove to Himself He could create something of His own. But it didn’t take Him a day or a moment, not by a long shot. Adam was indeed the first man, but only because all the creatures that came before him could not be considered as such. They were half-formed in their appearance or in their soul, always lacking something – a limb or an eye or a key component of the intricate, complicated web of emotions that makes humans... _human_.

God experimented with the gift of creation until He was satisfied, littering the mortal world with scraps in the meantime, not finding it in Himself to erase them from existence because at the end of the day, they were still a product of His hand. The lesser demons were basically twisted versions of humans, while the most powerful ones, capable of hiding in plain sight, were twisted versions of angels – no wings, no powers, but still immortal and gifted with abnormal strength.

The funny thing is that, in the end, even the man God settled for turned out to be fatally flawed, prone to sin and temptation, but in the very beginning the Lord thought He had actually managed to crack the code, not knowing that only by combining the divine energy of the Goddess with His own He could achieve the perfection of the angels already inhabiting the Silver City.

Be that as it may, this was the world Lilith entered after her escape, alone and hungry for self-actualization. She was a mortal, but shaped from clay by the Lord himself, and when she came upon the first demons it didn’t take long for her to acquire their powers by association, with rituals and practices the details of which got lost in the flow of time – all powers except the best one, immortality. Demons started to gather around her, amazed and fascinated as she danced for them in the night by a campfire, until dancing turned into something else and the Lilim, the spawn of the Demon Queen, were born.

But giving birth to demons – demons of the highest order, mind you – didn’t happen as it does for humans: it was quick, almost instantaneous after the act was done, and Lilith came to realize she didn’t particularly care for any of them because she had not carried them in her womb for months and didn’t have to feed them at her breasts. These entities came into the world from her body in clouds of fetid black smoke, then shifting into fully formed beings, with nothing for her to teach them.

And so it was that the Queen of Demons decided to obtain what she longed for: a human child. She seeked a man to seduce among the many that now populated the world – years and years had passed, but her demonic practices gave her the appearance of youth no matter how old she truly was, because if she couldn’t live forever she decided she could at least die beautiful. Finding a man to use to her gain wasn’t difficult, and after a few attempts she grew with child. She disappeared from the town she had found the man in, never to be seen again, and returned to the host of demons eagerly awaiting her.

But fate is cruel, has been so since the dawn of humanity, because what Lilith didn’t know was that God had cursed her as punishment for her disobedience, binding her to never be able to achieve her one single purest desire. The woman who rebelled to run away and find her destiny, condemned to have it at her fingertips but never grasp it.

The child was born, filling Lilith with a surge of love she had never experienced before, but from the start it was clear he would only survive a few hours, for even breathing seemed to cause him pain.

And when the end was near, Lilith couldn’t find it in herself to let him go. Driven to desperation by the impending loss of her son, she turned to her demonic practices and managed a feat she thought was impossible, an act she would never perform again, afterwards.

To save her baby, she turned him into a demon.

But the ritual was hasty, untested, reckless and imperfect, and the creature it generated wasn’t like the Lilim: it was deformed, a black slithering worm almost with no features, with nothing that would remind Lilith of the child she had given birth to.

Lilith tried to care for the creature, tried to cradle it against her chest and feed it at her breast, but it wasn’t human and all it ever did was try and sneak away from her grasp to crawl into the depths of the Earth. At some point, Lilith couldn’t take it anymore, riddled with guilt at the thought of having denied her child the peace of Heaven. She didn’t want it for herself, didn’t care where she ended up, but her son deserved better.

So she killed him. Born from the union of two humans, the half-demon was still mortal like his mother, who took him to a nearby pond one day and returned to her army of servants empty-handed.

In her loop, Lilith drowns him again, and again, and again, but of course the baby has the features of a human child in her imagination, so the act seems and feels even more tragic, barbaric, despicable. Still gifted with demonic powers, Lilith can be easily distracted from it if she really puts her mind to it; by demons stopping by to pay their respects, by Lucifer back when he seeked punishment and oblivion... and by Chloe, the mortal who stepped into her personal Hell by accident.

No, not by accident, exactly. By Lucifer’s utter and total _stupidity_. How could he let her roam his palace alone? He should have gone after her. Or maybe he should have just shared the truth about Lilith to begin with and trusted Chloe to understand, because the Detective is strong and she can take it now, can deal with all that he is or has been.

And now- now he dreads what he will find, as he closes the door behind him and starts walking toward the small lake.  
  
As he expected, at the edge of the pond kneels a woman, her hands disappearing below the surface of the water. She looks like Lilith, but he knows who she is even before she looks up at him with frantic panic in her eyes – eyes that shouldn’t be this bright or kind underneath it all, because by the time Lilith died and arrived in Hell the darkness had a strong hold around her grieving soul.

Chloe, his Chloe although not from the outside, lifts her hands from the water and sobs in desperation.

“Make it stop" she begs as Lucifer runs to her and kneels at her side. “Please, Lucifer, make it _stop_.”

The thought of her reliving someone else’s sin for an indefinite amount of times almost chokes him, makes it hard for him to speak. He can add this to the long list of things he put her through ever since he met her: _Congratulations, Lucifer, if this was a competition you would certainly earn a medal_.

“Come with me, I’m taking you out of here" he tells her, inching closer to try and lift her in his arms, but her hands are suddenly in the water again and when they come back up, a baby lies in her grasp, a manifestation of Lilith’s guilt.

There is no Father Kinley in sight because this isn’t an empty loop left open to be filled. It’s incredibly cruel and ironic, the fact that Lucifer would rather see that wretched priest; at least he could try and punch his imaginary version in the face. The sight before him, instead, is almost too much to bear, and there is no one to vent his rage against. If there was a way for the ground to open under Lucifer’s feet and swallow him, this would be the time.

He tries to take the child but Chloe moves away and proceeds to bury her hands in the water again, crying all the while.

“I don’t understand! Why am I doing this? Why doesn’t it _end_?” she sobs as soft bubbles spread and quickly die along the surface of the water.

“It’s not real, Chloe" Lucifer replies, tears stinging at the corners of his own eyes as he cradles her face in his hands; it feels so wrong to do it when the woman in front of him isn’t her but her eyes, her eyes are the windows to her soul and Lucifer tries to only stare at them. “This isn't real, this isn’t _you_. We have to go now. Please, please come with me.”

“But don’t you see what I'm doing?” she shouts, her now empty hands coming up to bat Lucifer’s away from her face. “I don’t deserve to leave! I'm- I'm a monster!”

“You’re not" Lucifer tells her in a pained whisper. _You are the sun, you are brighter than any star I ever pinned to the sky, you are the only light in this forgotten pit of sulphur and rotten corpses. You are perfect._

He is this close to taking her in his arms against her will and drag her away as she kicks and screams for him to put her down, like he did with his mother, but if he did he's scared the guilt will never leave her, that it will poison her existence back on Earth and drive her insane in the end. At the same time, he’s aware that he needs to hurry because who knows what will happen if the effect of the seeds runs its course: will Lilith manage to sneak her way into the world, fully inhabiting Chloe’s body?

So when another baby pops back into her shaking arms, Lucifer goes in for the kill.

“Chloe, think of Trixie. She’s waiting for you. This isn’t your child, _she_ is, and she needs you!”

This seems to give her a bit of clarity, but it lasts for a brief instant before an expression of pure torment distorts her features.

“Trixie... I... No, I can’t go back... What if I did this to her?”

It’s in this moment that Lucifer wishes he was mortal, maybe for the first time in eons of existence; so he could drown himself instead and escape a loop that, in a cruel twist of fate, is turning out to be his as well.

“No, no, no, you- you would never! You are kind and loving and the best mother she could ever have!” he pleads, putting his hands on her cheeks again. This time he moves his face closer, too, until their noses are almost touching. “Think of her, Chloe. Think of Trixie. Think of how much you love her. In your heart, you know this isn’t you.”

Chloe looks into his eyes, her frame shaken by uneven breaths and quiet, tiny hiccups. She slowly lowers the baby to the ground, her hands trembling almost uncontrollably.

“Take me home, Lucifer" she whispers tiredly, collapsing into his arms with her face buried in the crook of his neck, and Lucifer doesn’t need to be told twice because he would save her in any form, any shape, any reign, any universe.

He lifts her up and lets her wrap her arms around his shoulders, trying not to flinch at how wrong it seems to look down and see black hair cascading over his chest instead of blonde. He covers her head with one hand, shielding her eyes from her surroundings in fear of a relapse, and carries her all the way to the door and then beyond it.

Even once they are back inside the palace with the door shut behind them, Chloe shakes so hard that Lucifer doesn’t have it in him to put her down. So instead, he gently kneels down with her still tucked in his embrace and looks at Lilith, thankfully still chained to the wall, with quiet rage in his eyes.

“Fix this. _Now_” he orders, rocking Chloe as she cries softly. Lilith grins, proud at the result of her little escapade. Lucifer would tear her apart limb from limb if he could, but at the end of the day all of this is his fault too, for giving this dark version of Eve the power to hurt him and Chloe as a consequence. All the more reason for Chloe to leave, before this place manages to suck her in like it just tried to do.

The Demon Queen possessing the love of his life moves closer and pries Chloe’s exhausted face away from his neck. Lucifer flinches at the motion, every fiber of his being telling him to protect Chloe and pull away, but he knows Lilith will do what he told her. She had her fun. The game is over.

“Try not to enjoy this too much" she tells him with a wicked grin, before pressing her lips to the other confused woman’s. Lucifer sucks in a sharp breath as the two souls flow into one another, retaking their place, until the person lying in his arms is the real Lilith and the one chained to the wall is Chloe.

Before Lilith can try and make a run for it – to where exactly he doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to find out – Lucifer lowers her to the ground, grips her by her hair and opens the door.

“I'll deal with you later" he growls in her ear, his eyes flashing red even though she can’t really see them, before shoving her inside and slamming the door shut. Then he turns around, kneels at Chloe’s feet and breaks the cuffs from around her wrists with his bare hands.

Chloe flings herself at him, retaking her rightful place in his arms, and as brief as it will be Lucifer can’t help but be relieved. She’s fine, or she will be, and it’s all that really matters in the end.

“It’s over" he whispers in her ear, her blonde hair tickling his nose – his last breath of Heaven before darkness engulfs him again, and Lucifer drinks it in deeply, closing his eyes at the sensation. “It’s over, you’re safe.”

“It felt so real. It was awful" Chloe says brokenly, and she feels so small, so tiny in his arms all of a sudden.

“I know" Lucifer replies as he tightens his hold around her, before pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”

_For everything._

Chloe lifts her face from the crook of his neck to look at him, and it’s so good to stare at her face and recognize the kindness in her eyes, and the intensity of a fresh realization.

“It’s not your fault" she tells him, brushing her thumb over his cheekbone; the touch of forgiveness, light as a feather, but Lucifer leans into it anyway because it will have to last him for millennia. “I shouldn’t have run, and you were right. Trixie needs me. And I will always be the Queen you made me, but Hell... Hell is no place for me, I see that now.”

As if fate or his Father are out there listening, her skin starts to lose texture under Lucifer’s fingertips, growing transparent as her soul slowly leaves Hell for the last time. They look at each other with a gasp, both realizing what is happening almost in unison. So many things remain unsaid between them, apologies for the mess they both made, but there is no time and maybe it’s for the best. Maybe all they really need to say is the essential, because deep down they already forgave each other.

“Goodbye, my fierce Detective" Lucifer tells his abdicating queen, tucking a strand of hair behind Chloe's ear. “Goodbye, my sweet Persephone.”

“I love you" Chloe replies, smiling through a new wave of tears. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Lucifer leans in and kisses her, gripping her face tightly as it slips from the fabric of this dimension, from the reality of what has been their kingdom, for a time. A barren wasteland Chloe filled with her laughter and her soft moans and sounds of pleasure in the night, with a music Lucifer wouldn’t be able to replicate but that will never leave his memories.

Chloe’s hand strokes his cheek, until it doesn’t, and then she’s gone.


	10. Epilogue

It’s been three years by now. Chloe tries not to think about how many they have been for Lucifer, in the meantime, because despite her brief supernatural adventure and her now extensive knowledge of all things celestial, her mind still struggles to process the concept of centuries or millennia outside of descriptions in history books or definitions of geological periods. Still, she aches for him, for the Hades she left alone down in the Underworld, and lives out her days with an underlying sense of longing that she fears she’ll never find relief from.

She still sleeps in his bed in the penthouse sometimes, but less often: only when the pain of his absence becomes unbearable, when the ache turns to a burning sensation in her lungs. Between his sheets, from which his scent has faded away by now, she dreams of her other life; of an iron crown slipping from her head as her heart swells to the sound of an angel's laugh, of the winding stone paths leading to his underground palace that she’ll never walk again.

In her nightmares, she still commits the unspeakable sin that was forced upon her in Hell, but when she wakes up, the guilt dissolves with her first gasping breath in the morning air. Because once again he saved her, as he always does before saying goodbye.

Lucifer’s employees, now paid by Maze, keep Lux running, but it’s Chloe who keeps his house alive with her presence, a few food supplies, her tentative attempts at playing the piano (not any better than the one and only time they did together). Just in case. She knows she needs to move on, and feels like she’s making a home out of what is ultimately a grave, the resting place of their love story; a cemetery haunted by the ghosts of the things they will never do, an earthly Hell loop of her own making.

And still, she waits. Because back then, alone and in the dark, the Lightbringer waited for her.

It seems nothing short of a divine intervention (yet again), the fact that when Lucifer lands on the balcony of his apartment one night, Chloe is there. Or maybe fate, or simply luck. It’s a soft thud, an almost imperceptible whisper of fluttering wings, but Chloe wakes up nonetheless, because she has heard it a million times in her restless dreams. She sits up against the pillow, her heart thundering in her chest, before rushing outside, scared of having been tricked by her own delusions.

But no, he is actually there. Lucifer stares at her in shock; certainly he didn’t expect to find her here. For a moment, Chloe can’t even move.

“I had to wash away the stench of Hell from my skin, then I would have come by your house" Lucifer says, clearly the stupidest and most useless of all the things he could have come up with because Chloe couldn’t care less about the way he smells, but at the same time, it’s such a _Lucifer_ thing to say.

She chokes back a sob with a smile and crashes into him, and from then, it’s a blur. Wings fold back in, two strong arms embrace her, then pick her up; soft yet demanding lips press on hers and Chloe wants, wants, wants so she takes, takes, _takes_ because she has wanted for so long. They don’t say a single word, not one, except for _yes_ and _more_ and each other’s name. Chloe doesn’t ask if he’s staying or if he just managed to sneak out for a bit, because at least for now, she doesn’t want to know.

She wants _him_, and even if it’s not forever, it will have to do.

*

It happens fast, and as with all things coming from Heaven, Lucifer fears the happiness resulting from it will be hollow or short-lived, betraying a trick or a cruel manipulation meant to fill him with false hope.

Yet he jumps at the chance, because it's the first one he’s had in an eternity – by human standards, for sure – and bolts when the fleeting loyalty of his demons falters as they stare at an all too familiar spectacle, deformed mouths agape. It’s not Lucifer they follow, not really: their submission gravitates toward any manifestation of his Father’s might or wrath.

On his throne made of hellish stone, he leaves the iron crown he started wearing again to keep the memory of his Queen alive. A peace offering, an invitation, a thank you gift; he’s not really sure. Hopefully, it will be enough.

Earth welcomes him with soft sand under his shoes and ocean breeze in his lungs, chasing away the bitter taste of the ashes. He doesn’t know why, but he feels like taking a moment to breathe before diving back into the mayhem that is the human world, with its beauties and flaws and almost unforgivable imperfections. Ultimately, with its life. He sighs, thinking of her.

_I'm ready._

He closes his eyes, opens his arms, spreads his wings behind his back and then lets himself soar.

*

In the end, it turns out that Chloe might be getting forever.

Lucifer is staying, he declares, and to celebrate they throw a big welcome-back lunch at Linda’s house, complete with paper decorations of little devil emojis hanging from her wooden ceiling and a “Welcome Back" garland they readapted by adding “from Hell" on a piece of paper glued to the bottom. If at this point Trixie has picked up on what all of this means, on where he’s been and who he is, she doesn’t say, content to know or pretend that the weirdest and funniest person in her life is back from a very long business trip.

The whole circle of Chloe’s friends is here, because at some point during the past three years, Chloe decided she needed a support group so she and Linda shared the truth with Dan and Ella. They look like deers in headlights as they take in Lucifer’s presence again, because everything is different now, she knows. At least they had time to get comfortable with the notion and no chance to go into full exorcism mode in his absence, but Chloe knows it will still take a while now that he’s back.

“He _fell_, brother!” Lucifer explains heatedly to Amenadiel, jumping up from his chair to gesture wildly, unable to contain his excitement. “Michael, that unbearably obedient little prick! He fell, as I did! Ha! Imagine how _that_ must have wounded his gigantic ego!”

There’s a family drama behind it, secrets that date back to the beginning of time, that none of them can’t even begin to comprehend, so they don’t try and let him speak. Chloe, Maze and Linda share pleasant, happy glances as he talks and bounces around the room, filling it with a joy he took away with him when he left. _He is back_, they tell each other, _and it feels so good._

“Wait, _that_ Michael?” Ella asks, more excited than shocked at this point, a manic grin on her face at the prospect of hearing countless stories about angels and demons and her beloved God above.

“I don’t get it, are they _all_ siblings?” Dan mutters, looking around the table for an answer as the rest of them shrug or laugh in amusement.

“Yes, Miss Lopez, and yes, Danny boy – do try to keep up, will you?” Lucifer huffs in mock exasperation, and in this precise moment, Chloe knows everything will be like he never left at all.

“But why did Father send him away?” Amenadiel asks, cutting through the light atmosphere with his usual, unsettingly natural seriousness and composure.

“As if I could ever have a bloody clue about His plans. I was hoping you would tell me!” Lucifer replies, stopping his happy walk around the table for a moment. “I flew out of there first chance I got!”

Amenadiel looks over at Charlie playing with Trixie on the floor, where she’s drawing a pretty decent-looking angel in a suit (she _so_ knows everything, who is she even kidding at this point) while the little half-angel is drawing what looks like a swirling fireball of all the colors of the rainbow.

“I haven’t been to the Silver City in a while" Lucifer’s brother confesses, smiling in the direction of his son. Lucifer follows his gaze and rolls his eyes.

“Right,” he mutters, “and to think I didn’t give you more than a year.”

“Hey!” Linda pipes up, her eyes crinkling up at the corners, outraged at such an insinuation directed at the angel that is now her husband.

Everyone laughs, even the utterly confused and overwhelmed Dan, and for the first time Chloe thinks they are a family: big, weird, loud, completely bonkers, made of humans, demons, celestials and one in-between. And it was Lucifer who brought them all together, when he landed in their lives with the abruptness and intensity of a comet crashing down on Earth. The fallen angel who fell in their small, insignificant world and left a hole only he can fill.

“Can you believe they are talking about Heaven, Dan? And _Father_ \- the Big Guy truly is their _dad_! This is so exciting!” Ella announces as she claps her hands together, giddy on wine and life and the – once again renewed – certainty of her faith.

“Anyway, back to _me_,” Lucifer reprimands her as he points a finger at his own chest, but with a softness in his eyes that Chloe can only define as brotherly, “he fell and all the demons swarmed around him like hungry little ants the moment they saw his wings. Wretched, ungrateful creatures, so eager to replace me!”

A terrified-looking Dan turns around to stare at Maze and gulps, connecting the new piece of information with the fact that she is one of those wretched, ungrateful creatures.

“Yes, I'm a demon, Dan, get over it" Mazikeen snarls before taking a long swig of red wine from her glass.

“Maybe Father thought it was time to leave you be and give the job to someone else" Amenadiel speaks up again: clearly, he has been thinking about it ever since asking the question, ignoring the banter all around him.

“Tssk, somehow I highly doubt it. It’s more likely that Mickey pissed Him off big time. But please, feel free to give Him extra credit, as usual" Lucifer deadpans. He claps his hands once and rubs them together, ready to dive into whatever new subject is about to spill out of his mouth.

“So, what’s the little angel’s special power, eh? Please tell me it’s X-ray vision.”

*

_It’s time, Michael._

The Word of his Father booms and echoes in the archangel’s ears, thundering with the force of a thousand storms. Michael sighs. He knew this was Father’s intention for a while now, and it’s not his place to question it – he is the sword that strikes evil down when He tells it to, the weapon he sheaths back in its scabbard when commanded to show mercy. Still, nothing stops him from voicing his opinion.

_He doesn’t deserve it, Father. You are being too good to him._

Michael has no love for his brother, that ancient serpent called the Devil who leads the whole world astray. Apparently he is changed, they whisper in the Silver City: he’s been sitting on his throne for ages now, finally accepting the role that has been given to him, the punishment he brought on himself. And of course, his Father who art in Heaven picked this moment to reward him – for what, Michael doesn’t really know.

For taking forever to stop sneaking away among humans and spread destruction and sin in the human world? For selflessly stopping the mortal woman he apparently loves from going back to visit him and die in the process, despite the fact that in doing so, she could have stayed with him for good? Is it really worth rewarding, when surely he was undeserving of her affection to begin with?

Maybe Lucifer is _still_ Father's favorite son, he realizes, but chases envy away with a shake of his head, for such vile emotions don’t suit the very first children of God. He looks back at the Silver City from where he’s standing at the very edge of it, from where he cast Lucifer – no, _Samael_ – down, pointing his sword at his brother’s puffed-up, defiant chest; still proud, so proud, even after everything. Such irony, for Michael to be the one to save him now, but Father’s will is his own. Unlike the Devil, he accepts the part he has in His play: to be His champion, His hero, even (_especially_) when it’s hard.

_I'm ready._

He closes his eyes, crosses his arms over his chest, forces his wings to stay folded behind his back and then lets himself go.

*

They mold their lives around each other in a way they never have before, filling the cracks and gaps in their routine that they used to experience separately: the nights after work, weekends, vacations, Sundays at the park. Lucifer is more real and solid than he’s ever been, a steady presence made authentic and palpable by the intimacy they share, the domesticity Chloe has craved for so long and missed down in Hell, the normalcy of living, of simply _existing_ in the same time and place – this time on Earth, where there are errands and taxes and school and the job but also the sun and the stars and music, so much music because Lucifer missed it and now he plays all the time.

Some cases are boring, some are challenging; it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, when Chloe is too tired and doesn’t feel like having take-out, Lucifer makes dinner for her in his “Kiss the cook" apron and of course, earns a kiss for it.

Trixie loves him like a second father and he loves her, too; he’ll probably never say it in words but he tucks her in at night sometimes, and tells her elaborately edited stories of his angel shenanigans in the crystal palaces of the Silver City, and Chloe listens to his voice from the living room and imagines him flying quick and bright among the clouds, the same in his appearance but younger and more reckless in his soul.

They never discuss the unsolvable, fundamental difference between what they are, the fact that Lucifer will never grow old or the many things Chloe is not meant to understand, skeletons hidden in Lucifer’s elegant closet from a time when Chloe's existence had yet to be conceived by the Lord his Father. She just comes to embrace their life, the same way she accepted all that Lucifer is; forgets the hundreds of reasons they probably shouldn’t do this and resigns herself to the realization that, quite simply, the alternative is far worse than their struggle to co-exist.

In Hell, they cheated fate and tricked time to create a little world all for themselves, made of a stolen mattress on the floor and dresses borrowed from the damned, their careless, almost blasphemous way of playing house; but the time they have been gifted on Earth, although they still don’t know why, this one feels like they have earned it.

They talk less and less about the Underworld, and in time, Chloe’s voyage down below starts to take the form of a distant dream in her mind, like an out-of-body experience on the brink between life and death before she woke up from a coma and moved on with her life.

But one Sunday, they are at the park with Trixie, sitting on a red and white checkered cloth to have a slow, lazy afternoon picnic. Chloe’s offspring – like all things Lucifer, the nickname stuck even with her – is playing with her pink kite in the wind, a few feet from them. Lucifer has taken off his jacket and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up at his elbows; he looks like a poet ready to write a sonnet, sprawled in the shade of the tree behind them.

Before running off, Trixie made them two flower crowns and put them on their heads, sweet, innocent mockeries of royalty and of something they have been or maybe still are: two rulers in a self-imposed exile, happy to enjoy the rest of their days secluded from the world.

Lucifer dips his hand inside the basket he brought along with him and takes something out of it: the forbidden fruit, at least in Chloe's garden; the seed of a temptation she can indulge in again because he’s here, he’s _here_.

“Pomegranate, my Queen?” he asks her, the Hades of her story and the snake in her Eden, a glint of mischief and soft reverence in his eyes.

When Chloe takes it from his hand, she focuses on the flower petals catching in his dark locks, standing out against the pale skin of his temples; his face disarmingly young and beautiful and bound to never, ever change.

“With pleasure, my King.”

He lost his kingdom but in her heart, he reigns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm such a sucker for happy endings, guys! Hope that wasn't too easy of a way out after all the angst, and that the ending was satisfying. Thank you to everyone who read, left kudos and commented ❤


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